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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 














* 







WE THREE 




WE THREE 

A NOVEL 

OLGA’and ESTRID OTT 


AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION 
From the Danish by 
ALBERT VAN SAND/ / 



NEW YORK 

MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY 
1924 




Copyright, 1924, by 
MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY 


' V 





Printed in the United States of America by 

J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


001-2 24 

©C1AS0813S 

*v 



WE THREE 



WE THREE 


Titlis Hotel, 

Engelberg, Jan. 8th 

Dear Mother, 

We were sitting together in the large dining 
room, Father and I. We were at lunch. 

Father said, “Why do you always talk about 
a career? Good heavens, haven’t we enough 
money? Not many years will pass anyway 
before my little chickadee will fly out of the nest 
and marry.” 

Chickadee! 

I shook my head and said, “Never, I don’t 
want to get married.” 

Father looked at me with a smile in his eyes. 
“Aha, so the little one has reached that age.” 

“If I married,” I continued, “it would be to 
the best man in the world, not the second best 
or the third or fourth best, but the very best, do 
you understand? And the very best! Why, it 
is foolish even to think he should care for me.” 

“Heavens, my child, how much you are like 


We Three 

your mother!” There were both terror and ad¬ 
miration in his voice. 

That happened yesterday and that is why I 
write this letter—I cannot get it out of my 
thoughts. I am like my mother—we are alike 
—perhaps, yes, perhaps she will understand me, 
now when I write. 

“Father,” I begged, stroking his hand, “tell 
me a little about my mother.” He drew his hand 
away with a slight jerk. 

“You know, Vera, that there are topics so 
personal that one does not speak of them to a 
single soul.” 

“Not even to one’s daughter?” 

“No, not even to one’s daughter.” 

“But it is my mother,” I said, and my eyes 
filled with tears. “Supposing I died?” 

“Vera, my child, are you afraid of dying?” 

I looked at him keenly. “Are you afraid that 
I shall die?” 

Father did not answer—he had been strangely 
low spirited during the whole meal. He ner¬ 
vously drew the Times out of the bundle of 
newspapers in front of him, looked through the 
advertisements and suddenly pointed to a name. 
“That is your mother!” 

I leaned over the table, turning over an egg 

4 


We Three 

cup in my eagerness and read: “Mary Saunders 
in the leading part.” 

“Is that-?” 

Father had risen and nodded slightly. Then 
he hurriedly left the dining room without a word 
and forgot his eyeglasses—Father, who never 
forgets anything! 

The doctor says that I have tuberculosis. 
That is why we are in Switzerland. Of course 
it is nonsense!—There is nothing the matter with 
me and I suspect the doctor is using me as a 
pretext to get Father to travel. He needs 
recreation, poor Father, who wears himself out 
in his business. 

Now if I had been a boy I could have started 
right in at the office, but I am only a girl. I have 
begged and begged to be allowed to start, if 
only as a licker of stamps, until he sees how 
efficient I am—and he won’t let me. 

Father never speaks about his business at 
home and says, “My home and my business are 
two different things.” (Did he say the same to 
you ?—those days.) 

He spoils me terribly. I consented to go away 
only on the condition that he would travel with 
me, and that I did not have to go to a sanitarium. 

So now we are here in Engelberg, deep in the 

5 



We Three 

recesses of a mountain pass, where the high peaks 
tempt me almost beyond endurance—I want so 
to go climbing; but the doctor says I cannot 
stand it. 

The air is clear and pure and the whole of 
fashionable Europe—or at any rate a part of it 
—has run away from the gloomy, raw cold slush 
of its native lands to the sparkling winter and 
wonderful sports of Engelberg. 

But that is not at all what I want to write 
about. As soon as I pick up a pen I just go 
scribbling on. Thoughts come rushing, step all 
over themselves, and are down on paper before 
I can arrange them. I am simply compelled to 
write them down. New thoughts are pressing, 
and they all want to be in it. 

I was five years old when you left us. I am 
almost nineteen now; so I have grown somewhat 
since you saw me. Isn’t it strange to think that 
if I went to London and met you on the street 
one day, you would not know that I am your 
child.—But at any rate, now I know where you 
live, and for that I am happy. I have so often 
tried to learn something about you from Grand¬ 
mother and Aunt Edith, but, like Father, they 
have seven seals closing their mouths.—And I 
cannot remember you. 

Erna (that was my chum in school) says that 
6 


We Three 


she was only four years old when her father died, 
and yet she remembers a lot of things about him. 

I believe it is because his picture hangs every¬ 
where, and because her mother always speaks 
about him. I want so much to remember You. 
You have no idea how many times I have racked 
my brain to recall some of your traits and char¬ 
acteristics; but, to be sure, I didn’t try until 
several years after you had left and there is no 
one here who will help me. 

It must surely have been you who were in the 
wrong when you parted or I should not have 
been here with Father.—I have said so to myself 
many a time, and it seems as if this thought gave 
me more courage to write to you,—since you are 
not like the other mothers, always admonishing 
and prohibiting. I think you would be a great 
mother—I mean, you know, to speak to as if 
you were a comrade—and I need just such a 
mother. 

But perhaps it is all not so at all. 

I have often wondered if you have ever missed 
me and if you were sorry to give me up. Now, 
I must know it. 

Father is terribly sweet, but there is never¬ 
theless so much he doesn’t understand at all, and 
especially so lately.—I hardly know myself any 
more.—Sometimes I have a desire to raise the 
7 


W e Three 

dickens. I sit and wonder what the guests 
would say if I should suddenly, during meals, 
start to sing at the top of my voice, and some¬ 
times I am wild to do all the things I do not dare 
to do. 

I do not know just how to explain it; for 
instance, I want to drive the car down the road 
with closed eyes.—I don’t dare.—But I can’t 
help myself. Last week I ran against a tree. 
I opened my eyes at the last moment, so for¬ 
tunately nothing happened except that the mud¬ 
guard was bent. Afterwards I bawled like a 
baby. It seems pitiful that I have become so 
hysterical and hectic, just like those school¬ 
mates of mine for whom I had the greatest 
contempt. But the day after I crawled out of 
the window and swung myself up on the slanting 
roof of the hotel. It was icy and I was terribly 
afraid of falling, so I really don’t understand 
why I did it. 

Yes, I believe it is because I must have some¬ 
thing to do. I am not bored, I am accustomed 
to being alone, and I really like it—but some¬ 
thing inside of me urges me to do something—to 
he something. I am fired with ambition,—but 
what is the use? Now if we were poor, we 
should be compelled to earn money—but darn 
it! we are not, and I envy all the lucky dogs who 
5 


W e Three 


build up their own lives and futures. At night 
I lie awake dreaming how I will run away from 
it all and go out into the wide, wide world to 
create a name for myself. But in the morning 
I realize how foolish it is. Why is it the men 
who always do the big things? The reason for 
this lies in the fact that they get a training which 
is denied me. I am expected to marry. But I 
have decided to be an old maid. 

That will annoy Father, but I don’t care. He 
likes me to be very popular, and here at the hotel 
I am surrounded like a little queen. (There is 
a shortage of women.) Mon Dieu! What 
stupid compliments young fellows can think of! 
If I were a man I am sure I could think of more 
subtle things to say. 

And it irritates me beyond measure that they 
treat me as if I were made of glass—because I 
am “delicate.” I am always to have my way, 
no one must contradict me, and whenever I 
appear they all put on such an expression of 
compassion—I want to stick my tongue out at 
them. Why should I be treated as if I were at 
the end of my rope, when I feel strong and 
healthy—and burn with an energy which can 
find no outlet? 

You must help me, Mother! I beg and im¬ 
plore you. It is of no use to speak seriously to 
9 


We Three 

Father. To him I am always the “baby” and 
“chickadee” and we get nowhere. 

What shall I do? What shall I do to become 
somebody, for I will not go about as a parasite 
all my life? 

However much I meditate upon it I cannot 
think of anything to which I am particularly 
suited. I was graduated from high-school this 
summer—scraped through by the skin of my 
teeth—lazy—and I don’t care to study. 

Nurse? I believe I would pinch the patients 
when I was in a bad humor. Teach? I love 
children and don’t like to torture them. 

Office? Yes, if I could find a place where I 
could work myself up, as the boys do; but it is 
only in inferior positions they care to have 
women, and I will not go into a blind alley— 
never. 

Governess? No, thanks—would rather be a 
cook. 

Actress? Now you must not propose that to 
me. I admire you because you dare, and at that, 
in a foreign tongue. Nothing would be more 
impossible for me than to appear in public. I 
have not the slightest desire to stand face to face 
with an audience who afterwards criticise my 
language, my appearance, walk, the conception 
of my part, and God knows what. 

10 


We Three 


The only thing I really care for is to figure 
out what other people think about, where they 
come from, where they are going, with whom 
they are in love, and things like that. 

I love to sit in a hidden corner in the hotel 
lobby and see them come in.—I think, by the 
way, I should like to be a Fortier , for even 
now I am sure how each one should be treated 
and I am getting quite proficient in languages. 
But they don’t use women for such work, and 
I suppose there are no places where they can 
use young girls who understand how to talk to 
people? Or, are there? 

When I started this letter I said to myself: 
Only four pages—she may not even receive the 
letter, as the only address you have is the theatre 
in London. Your mother is perhaps studying 
a new part and is very busy. Perhaps she is 
married and has other children—perhaps she 
wishes to forget both you and Father and—you 
may not even receive an answer. 

But here it is—eight pages, closely written, 
large foolscap—for I can't stop when once I 
get started. 

Dear, how happy I am that I do not need to 
send my thoughts to Mother out into the empty 
spaces any longer. I now understand why 
Father asked me every time I went to the theatre 
11 


We Three 

(for I love to go) if I could ever think of be¬ 
coming an actress,—He, of course, thought of 
you. I am not going to tell him anything about 
this letter. I am afraid it will hurt him; perhaps 
he would even forbid me to write. 

But why should not a daughter write to her 
own mother, when she needs her so very much? 

There were so many other things I wanted to 
tell you, but I will wait—wait for your answer. 

I count the days until I receive your letter. 
—Vera Dahl, General Delivery, Engelberg, 
Schweitz.—I enclose a photograph which will 
show you that “the Baby” is not so very small. 

If you only knew how I long . . . 

Yours, 

Yera. 


12 


London, January 12th 

Child—Darling Vera! 

At last you came to me—came of your own 
accord—came because in the midst of a circle 
which loves and adores you you felt lonely— 
came—because you are like me. 

Father is right. You are like me—spiritually 
and physically. Even your handwriting looks 
like mine. 

When I came here to the theatre for rehearsal 
the door-man gave me your letter. I was 
startled when I held it in my hand, for it was my 
own handwriting—but the post-mark “Schweitz” 
I did not understand. I carried it up to my 
dressing-room and did not open it until I was 
alone. 

From the moment I held it in my hand I knew 
—the miracle had happened! 

I read the first words “Dear Mother” and I 
kept on repeating them to myself. “Dear 
Mother”—I could not go on for I could not see 
any longer—the tears blinded my eyes. I cried 
—cried. 

I haven’t cried since the day I left you—at 

13 


We Three 

least not over anything concerning myself. I 
have cried when I played a part which touched 
the broken chords in my heart—and I have cried 
when I saw a dirty, ill-kept child on the street. 
But never over any troubles of my own. 

A very wise man once said to me, “If one could 
get accustomed to eating a toad every day for 
breakfast, anything else one eats the rest of the 
day would taste very fine,”—and he was right. 

When the worst that can happen happens, all 
other sorrows and troubles are of no consequence. 

But now I cried.—I felt as if I were an ice- 
maiden, who had lived for many years in the 
heart of an iceberg and who is suddenly called 
back to life by summer and sun. 

Your picture stands on my table, and I have 
searched and searched each feature. No—I 
could never have passed you on the street with¬ 
out recognizing you. The eyes and mouth would 
have betrayed you at once—for you look like me 
and you are like me—and that is why you, at last, 
have come. 

You cannot remember me—not one feature or 
characteristic can you recall. But on my mind’s 
eye picture after picture are indelibly stamped 
—from the day when first you hid your little 
mouth at your Mother’s breast, until the even¬ 
ing when you lay in your little bed and did not 
U 


We Three 

know that your mother bent over you crying her 
heart out to bid you a last good-bye. 

And yet—even that night I knew you would 
come to me—for you and I are alike. 

You were only three years old when I first 
noticed it. You were lying in your bed on Eas¬ 
ter morning when Grandmother came to you 
with a little Easter rabbit. I saw your eyes 
sparkle with joy and impulsively you stretched 
out your hand to take it—but—Grandmother 
stipulated conditions. “Now you must be very 
sweet to the little bunny—pat it nicely—and 
give it a little kiss.” 

At once you became cold and hard, but Grand¬ 
mother continued, “Come with that little hand 
and pat it.” There came into your eyes a steely, 
hard look. You reached out and in an instant 
you had broken one of the rabbit’s legs, while you 
looked at your Grandmother with an almost 
triumphant expression. She dropped the rabbit 
and exclaimed, “But, Child! You are a bad girl. 
How could you do that—How could you be so 
naughty!” Whereupon she turned her back to 
you and went out. 

I stood hidden behind the three-fold screen 
that protected your bed from the draft—I 
wanted to see what would happen. 

You lay very still until the sound of footsteps 
15 


We Three 


had died away, and then you slid to the floor be¬ 
side the rabbit. You examined the leg and cried 
very softly—you took it into bed with you and 
put it next to your cheek. You petted it and 
wet it with your tears. 

From that day on you practically never let it 
out of your hand. Even when it was only a dirty 
woolen rag you crushed it between your warm 
little hands and it was with you wherever you 
went. The others wanted to take it away from 
you—their interest in the Easter rabbit was 
over, for it was no longer the immaculate, un¬ 
blemished white rabbit. They did not under¬ 
stand that for you it was a poor little stunted 
thing which you had taken under your wing— 
that your child-heart was filled with pity and 
sorrow over your own hardheartedness, for which 
you wanted to atone. 

You listened to your own heart’s silent whisper 
and followed its bidding, and any interference 
from the outside you met with defiance. 

I recognized myself in you! 

You write—“it must surely have been you 
who was in the wrong-” 

Yes, it was I who was in the wrong—always 
I—and your father who was right. There was 
never any question but that he was right—It 
was impossible, for he was the world’s best man. 

16 



We Three 

On that point also do we resemble each other, 
I would have none but the world’s best man— 
and I got him. 

Now I know that it would have been much 
better for me to have been satisfied with the third 
or fourth best—to have married a man who was 
not so absolutely without fault. For nothing is 
so hopeless as always to be the one who is wrong 
and to know it will never be otherwise. 

He was the world’s best man—but he was also 
the world’s best son and the world’s best brother. 
And those two—his mother and his sister—loved 
him with a love more egotistical than mine. They 
adored blindly, and demanded that I adore 
blindly, the result of which was that I ceased to 
adore at all. But the fault was mine—for he 
\was the world’s best man. 

I was alone in the world—without any family 
or friends. I had only him. I surrendered my¬ 
self completely and I demanded of him—well—I 
demanded too much of him, and there I was 
wrong. At last I committed a cruel act out of 
sheer defiance. 

Like you I once did the thing I really did not 
dare to do—like you I drove forward with closed 
eyes—(promise me, by the way, never to do it 
again). And when I opened them it was not 
just the mud-guard which was bent, but a life 
17 


We Three 

which was torn to pieces, and a home whose walls 
I had blasted and broken down. 

That evening I saw you for the last time. 
When in later years I thought of you, it was most 
frequently in that picture I recalled you—safely 
sleeping in your little bed—your blonde curls 
framing your delicate face, and the little hands 
tightly clasped around the neck of your doll. 

Time after time I kissed those wee plump 
hands while you slept peacefully and quiet, never 
feeling the tears which dropped on your hair. 

How many times since then have I not lain 
sleepless through the night and recalled this pic¬ 
ture to my mind! It was ever the little hands I 
longed to press to my lips again. 

Once I played a part in a German play of an 
unmarried mother who killed her infant. She 
could not bear the thought that it was to live in a 
world where people could be so cruel to each 
other. When she recovered her senses after the 
crime, it was always the little white dead hands 
that lingered in her thoughts. “Those tiny little 
hands,” she kept repeating in her misery. 

It was one of those evenings when my tears, 
coming from the depths of my heart, touched the 
soul of my audience so that they felt life’s deepest 
sorrow, and cried with me as loving and sympa¬ 
thetic friends will do. 


18 


W e Three 


But when I came home after the performance 
my heart was so heavy that I could not sleep. 
Continuously I repeated to myself, “Those tiny 
little hands—those tiny little hands.” 

You asked if I have missed you. Yes, I have 
missed you and longed for you. Not in the be¬ 
ginning when I was still cold with defiance, but 
more and more as time went on. 

It is triste indeed when one cannot enjoy 
others’ happiness, but when I saw mothers happy 
with their children or children who clung to their 
parents, I was most miserable and despairing. 
And yet, I had not, like the character in the play, 
left my child cold and dead in a lonely spot, but 
safely sleeping in its lovely warm bed. And I 
knew it was surrounded by good and loving 
beings, who are so good that they will never un¬ 
derstand you—or me. 

But how can I advise you—how dare I? On 
that evening I promised your father that I would 
never communicate with you, that I would never 
try to influence you. And even if I had not given 
that promise, how can I know anything about 
your ability or strength to finish this fight you 
are so anxious to begin? 

And besides, through your letter, in your lan¬ 
guage, in your longing to be of value to other 
19 


We Three 


people, in your ability to listen, to observe and re¬ 
tain, I feel the fieiy pulsebeat of the artist. But 
the path of the artist is rough and strewn with 
thorns. He must find it himself and he must 
walk it alone. Have you the strength? 

You write that you are sick, and name a dis¬ 
ease which you do not believe in and do not heed. 
I hope sincerely that you are not mistaken and 
that it is the anxiety of the family which is ex¬ 
aggerated. But how do I know? 

Now more than ever do I long to be with you 
and clasp your hand in mine, to share your 
thoughts and guard your way. But I have no 
right. I cannot come to you, for the others, the 
good and the righteous, form a circle around you 
which I must not enter. 

But promise me, Little Girl, that you will be 
sensible and wise. Do everything in your power 
to be well. Concentrate your strong will upon 
this, that first and foremost you must be well— 
absolutely well again. 

If I only had you here at my side that I could 
hear your voice. There are still so many things 
I would like to talk to you about. So much of 
my life I wish to tell you, and a letter, however 
long, says so little. 

But of course we have no other means if we 
20 


We Three 

wish to learn and understand a little of each 
other. 

Therefore you must write soon again. Tell 
me about yourself, your life, and tell me about 
your father. 

Is he still just as handsome and straight—is 
his hair just as thick and black as ever, or—have 
the years also marked him? 

May I whisper something to you?—I loved 
your father. When you were born I loved him 
madly—and perhaps—perhaps—but he must not 
know that. 

I do not understand that he mentioned my 
name. Is it his love for you which made him do 
it, or—is he also. . . .No, no, I will not think 
of such things. You said yourself, “Father never 
forgets anything.” 

There is one thing I would like to know. Has 
my little girl learned to smile? Does she know 
nature’s most radiant gift? That I must know 
if I shall guide you—for the impulsive soul of 
the artist is ever swinging between laughter and 
tears. 

Write to me, write from your innermost heart 
about the good and the bad—about happiness 
and sorrow. In this way only can I learn to know 
you, for only then can we solve the problems to¬ 
gether. 


21 


We Three 


I send you a little picture of myself, but do not 
believe in it. Beneath the make-up demanded by 
my profession life has put its marks and grief its 
furrows. 

I am at home after the theatre, writing. 

My home—yes. Yesterday it was only the 
reception salon of an artist. To-day it is a home 
—a lovely, cozy home. For in front of me, on 
my desk lighted up by the golden glow of the 
lamp, stands the picture of my daughter, smiling 
at me, and I smile back. Good-night, my 
Beloved Child. 

Mother. 

P.S.—Keep on addressing your letters to the 
theatre as I get my letters there more quickly 
than at home. 


22 


Hotel Titlis, 

Engelberg, Jan. 15th 
Mother, Mother, Mother: 

I am the happiest person in all the world. This 
morning when the sun’s pale ray broke in between 
the snow-covered mountains, I stood with my 
new friend, a young girl, on the highest peak of 
Titlis and shouted with joy. The guide was sit¬ 
ting a little away from us, gorging his breakfast. 
It was not the first time that he had scaled En- 
gelberg’s highest point. 

And there we saw the break of dawn! A touch 
of purple on the mountain tops beneath us, a blue 
tinge through the northern pass, a blood-red stain 
on the white snow in the deep cleft, and, slowly, 
the sun rose above the peaks, pouring its piercing 
yellow light through a narrow slit for an instant, 
effacing all colors in the next moment—and be¬ 
hold! the night was turned into day! 

We did not speak—my friend and I. We 
listened silently to nature’s voice, and I think she 
also had tears in her eyes. 

Have you ever wept for joy over the great, the 
wonderful, the incomprehensible? Just that you 
23 


We Three 

are alive, that you exist, that you have power, 
will, talents—Oh, Mother! I felt as if my heart 
must burst up there in the thin clear air; while the 
sun rose higher and higher, slowly uncovering 
peak after peak, slowly enlarging our vision and 
completely routing the fog. But far away, in the 
distance, the mountains remained blue. 

At that moment I knew I could conquer. I 
am strong and healthy! It was my new friend 
who made me try, who strengthened my will. 

Yesterday afternoon we set out. Last night 
we stopped at an inn half way up, and at four 
o’clock this morning we scaled the last and most 
dangerous part to reach the top. 

My foot stood firmly planted on the glacier. 
I did not become dizzy when I climbed the high 
granite mounts and only stopped for a moment. 
My nose was bleeding, but that is rather the usual 
thing up in the thin air. 

When I stood at the goal and saw the sun rise, 

I felt my heart swell with happiness—and I knew 
for a certainty that when I descended the letter 
would have arrived from my mother. 

The two others could barely follow me in the 
descent. I sat down in the snow and slid long 
stretches; I jumped easily over clefts, around 
which I had walked carefully during the climb. 

24 


We Three 

My friend began to scold, “Remember what you 
promised your father.” 

But how was she to know what awaited me at 
the postoffice? 

The postmaster smiled at my assurance and 
my eagerness, when I asked for the letter. 

I glanced at the writing. My own—returned! 

A sharp pain shot through my heart. Then 
I saw the address, and caught the fine perfumed 
fragrance emanating from the envelope. 

I put it hurriedly into one of my many pockets, 
almost forgot my alpenstock, and, in a moment, 
stood with the others out in the sunlight, flushed 
and confused. 

The guide was dismissed, and we went to the 
hotel together. Father came to meet us, eagerly, 
waving his hands, evidently relieved to see me 
looking so well. I became wild, bursting with 
deviltry, beaming. He wanted to hear about 
everything, know everything, and insisted upon 
my having something hot to eat and drink. 

He was really almost offended because I did 
not feel cold. And all the while, a letter was ly¬ 
ing in my pocket, waiting, waiting. . . . 

I joked and laughed; I was almost mad with 
joy. My cheeks were red for the first time in 
many months; my hands burned, and I was on 
pins and needles; while the letter waited, waited. 

25 


We Three 


Then suddenly came the reaction, the fatigue. 
I became faint and drowsy. My eyelids felt 
heavy. I fought to keep them open, but father 
noticed it, and insisted upon my going to bed— 
in the middle of the afternoon. 

I made no objection. While the curtains were 
drawn in my room to keep the daylight out, I sat 
on my chair, sleepily undoing my heavy mountain 
boots. After that, I locked my door, drew forth 
the letter, and put it on my bed. I would not 
read it until I had changed from my heavy sport 
clothes into a soft silk kimona. Oh, dear! I al¬ 
ways love to prolong the joy of receiving a letter! 
And I continued to fuss around, hanging my 
clothes away and putting my shoes outside the 
door to be cleaned, in order to draw out the time 
and heighten the tension. 

At last I got into bed and tore open the en¬ 
velope. 

“Child—my darling little Vera. . . . ” 

My eyes became heavier and heavier. “Child. 

. . . my darling little Vera. . . I slept. 

It is four o’clock now. I awoke suddenly with 
a strange feeling of joy. Then I remembered. 

I read on. I know that you also need me! 

I am utterly dumbfounded with delight just 
to think that you remember all the little incidents 
of my childhood. Some day we will meet in 
26 


We Three 


London, won’t we? Then we shall have a real 
talk with each other. Yes, we shall, even though 
Father objects, for I have not promised him any¬ 
thing. But do you think he will have the heart 
to deny me any pleasure—my sweet old daddy? 

By the way, I want to defend him. Father has 
lots of faults, but you grown-ups cannot see them. 
Of course I have had his virtues flung in my face 
many a time, both at school and at home, but I 
don’t care a rap about that, for I know he is not 
as thoroughly good as they want to make him out 
to be. 

For the world’s most wonderful man is not at 
all without faults or blemishes. No! on the con¬ 
trary, the world’s most wonderful man is some¬ 
thing quite different, something indefinable, but 
when he comes I shall recognize him. 

I wonder if Father has changed any since you 
saw him. I don’t believe so. He belongs to that 
category of men who never change. Of course 
he has acquired a few silver threads at the tem¬ 
ples, but they are very becoming to him. Then 
there is something around the eyes which has 
made its appearance during the last few years, 
some very fine wrinkles, which I call his grand¬ 
father wrinkles. 

Yesterday, when I had gone to bed up there in 
the mountains, in order to sleep a few hours be- 
27 


We Three 


fore we continued our climb, I lay thinking of all 
the new things that had come into my life, and 
suddenly it flashed through my mind that Father 
was in London two years ago. 

I remember it plainly now. It was just before 
Christmas. We were at dinner, Father and I, 
and of course Grandmother and Aunt Edith. 

Suddenly Father said: “To-morrow I am 
going abroad on a business trip.” 

“Berlin?” asked my aunt, indifferently. That 
is where he usually goes. 

“No. London.” 

“To London?” And Grandmother’s voice 
trembled with indignation. 

Father rose from the table impatiently and 
threw his napkin down. 

“Yes, there is something I must have settled, 
once and for all.” 

“But you surely don’t mean-” Grand¬ 

mother almost shouted the words. 

I interrupted, irritably, “For heaven’s sake, 
Grandmother! You surely aren’t afraid of his 
sailing for the North Sea so long after the war?” 

“No, of course not!” They exchanged glances 
and kept quiet. But I did not understand a 
word of it, until last night, almost two years 
later. 

And now, when I have read your lovely letter, 

28 


W e Three 

I cannot get it out of my thoughts that perhaps 
he sat in the theatre and heard you say in deep, 
deep anguish: “Those tiny hands! those tiny 
hands!’’ Oh, could I but ask him! . . . but I do 
not dare. 

The whole thing is very tragic to think about! 
None the less, I am so happy, so happy, because 
I have a real mother now, and because I have 
discovered what I want to he! 

You were right. No one could help me. I 
have to decide for myself. However, Fate in¬ 
tervened and pointed toward the goal. 

It happened four days ago. I sat in a dark 
corner of the lobby when the bus brought new 
guests to the hotel. 

The first one who jumped out was a slender 
young woman, with a very pale face, and jet 
black bobbed hair. 

The manner in which she entered the hall told 
me that she was traveling alone and that she was 
accustomed to traveling alone. I sat admiring 
her dress while she spoke to the Fortier . She felt 
that she was being watched, turned quickly, and 
let her eyes rove searchingly around the lobby. 
When they fell on me, she smiled, and at that mo¬ 
ment she looked about fifteen years old. (I had 
taken her to be about twenty-five.) 

She spoke English fluently, but when I heard 
29 


We Three 

her mention Copenhagen as her home, I decided 
to make her acquaintance. 

You know it is so very easy when one comes 
from a small country. 

“I hear you are Danish. So am I. Is there 
anything I can help you with?” 

“It is strange to meet a person from one’s own 
country in this little hole.” 

We were acquainted. 

She is a journalist, and has been sent down 
here by her paper. The four days she has been 
here have gone so quickly that I cannot under¬ 
stand how the time has flown. 

Her name—I almost forgot that—Inger Beck, 
twenty-two years old, both parents dead, inde¬ 
pendent, frightfully amusing, and possessing an 
energy that makes me dizzy. 

But you may be sure that I do not let her feel 
that it is hard for me to keep up with her tempo. 
The week she is here must be utilized to the 
utmost. 

It is astounding how much I have to learn, and 
she is a wonderfully enlightening teacher. 

I am going to be a journalist. When I hear 
her speak about the work and the life of a news¬ 
paper office, I know that is the life for me. 

I am determined to learn it. I shall learn it! 

“Do you think I can do it?” I ask her, timidly. 

SO 


We Three 


“Not if you have the slightest doubt about 
your abilities. Everyone will tell you that you 
cannot , and that will rob you of your courage.” 

“Of course I can!” I answer in a firm voice. 
“No one can make me doubt my powers.” (I am 
quick to learn, am I not?) 

“Then show it!” 

“How?” 

“There you are! That is for you to find out!” 

My brain nearly split, thinking. The same 
evening I handed her an article—“Winter modes 
in Switzerland,” nonchalantly and indifferently, 
without telling her that I had written and rewrit¬ 
ten it at least ten different ways before I found 
the right style—pungent, light, and entertaining. 

“How much do you want for it?” she asked 
after reading it. 

“I don’t want anything!” I answered, em¬ 
barrassed. 

“Are you mad ? Did you not tell me yesterday 
that you wanted to be independent? But it is 
harder for women to become accustomed to that 
than men. I have learned through bitter experi¬ 
ence that a laborer is worthy of his hire. You 
shall not only take it, but you shall demand it!” 

Suddenly she struck another note. 

“I am sure you thought I was terribly arrogant 
yesterday.” 


31 


We Three 


“Oh, I don’t know.” 

“Yes. Everyone calls me arrogant. Also in 
the office. But I don’t care. It is because there 
is no question in my mind but that I can become 
somebody. For I have the determination and the 
power, though one is not supposed to realize 
that, because it is pretentious and arrogant.” 

“One does not need to talk about it,” I de¬ 
murred. “Is it not sufficient to know it?” 

“It is expressed through one’s personality 
without talking,” she answered. “Your article 
is clever, but you lack technique. You ought to 
be associated with a small-town paper for a year 
or two. Then the rest will be easy.” 

She talks and talks and I just listen. 

I have read some of her articles. I can see 
that they possess a style that mine lacks, and she 
is both witty and quick at repartee, but I must 
admit I was slightly disappointed. I believe I 
could do it better myself after I learned the trick. 

(There you are! my arrogance is already bloom¬ 
ing!) 

Oh, Mother! just imagine being part of such 
a life, of such work! Isn’t that just the thing I 
have always longed for? At present I must be 
content merely to interview the journalist her¬ 
self, but some day when I really start and it be¬ 
comes a reality! . . . 


32 


We Three 


I have a goal now, and do not need to waste 
my energy any longer in aimless and silly drift¬ 
ing. My first step will be to persuade Father. 
How on earth I shall do it, I have not the slight¬ 
est idea, but it must be done! 

And of course I now have you to lean upon. 
For you are going to encourage me—aren’t you! 
You will have faith in my ability, and you will 
write to me often, very often! 

You, too, had a hard fight before you “ar¬ 
rived.” Did you have someone to help you? 

I am your daughter, and I shall reach as far as 
you have, for we are alike, you and I, and we are 
going to stick together—always! 

Father is outside, knocking at my door. He 
asks me if I am never coming down to dinner. I 
must give him a kiss . . . from you, also . . . 
because he is so good to me. ... I shall not tell 
him about it. 


Lots of love, 

Yours, Vera. 


London, January 20. 


Darling Vera: 

Thank you for your letter. Such joy of youth, 
beauty, and health breathes from its pages! Such 
a faith in life, happiness, and the future! You 
must know that, as I can help you, so can you 
help me; you have done so already in your last 
letter. 

The last few days I have been studying a part 
in one of these rather empty English conversa¬ 
tional plays which are the vogue of to-day. The 
action takes place in the same world as that in 
which I lived before I retired to devote myself 
exclusively to my art. Mrs. G. is visiting Mrs. 
E. and a little gossip around the tea table starts 
the intrigue. The types are good enough, true 
enough to life, but of no consequence whatever. 

I already have played many such parts and 
have been highly praised for my portrayals. 
There were always some people who would rec¬ 
ognize a good friend through my slightly ex¬ 
aggerated impersonation—never anyone who 
would recognize himself. 

But in the conception of this particular part— 
Si 


W e Three 


a lady of my own age with a grown daughter, I 
was at a loss—could not get the right angle. 

The world war changed the young girl’s whole 
trend of thought. She wanted, like you, to be of 
some use in the world; wanted to go her own 
way; but the family objected. She tries to win 
her mother to her side, and reproaches her for not 
helping her. 

But the mother answers sorrowfully: 

“I cannot help you, child. I have lived so long 
among the people here that I have become like 
them.” 

I could not get in contact with this mother. 
Her lack of energy and resistance amazed me. 
Her words were too vague and helpless. There 
was nothing to take hold of. 

Then came your letter, sparkling with youth¬ 
fulness, energy and ambition. It awakened old 
feelings and thoughts in me. I listened, like the 
old race-horse, for the signal to start, and sud¬ 
denly the words, “I have lived so long among 
the people here that I have become like them,” 
acquired a new meaning. And in that moment 
the part was created f 

Her mind is now in a troubled, nervous state. 
A strange, half-conscious restlessness permeates 
her being, like the sound of old, well-known melo¬ 
dies. One feels throughout the lines her solitary 
35 


We Three 

inner struggle, until she succumbs to the in¬ 
fluence of those around her. And when the 
daughter’s will prevails and she leaves her home, 
the mother is not left behind sorrowing and re¬ 
signed, but happily smiling, she looks ahead as if 
a new hope is blossoming in her heart. 

There was a great deal of discussion about my 
conception of the part, but I won the victory, the 
stage director taking sides with me. 

“It looks as if you had had a vision,” he said. 

Did I not have—your letter! 

I am thinking of what you wrote about 
Father’s visit to London. If he really went to 
the theatre that time and saw me play, it was not 
in a German play, however. They have been* 
banished from here since the beginning of the 
war, unfortunately. 

But I remember one evening, about that time, 
someone sent me a bouquet of La France roses, 
without a card. 

I thought of him a great deal that evening— 
my wedding bouquet consisted of those flowers. 
Was that perhaps a greeting from—no! 

But we are going to talk about you, and the 
decision you have made. 

I see you in my thoughts, standing at the cross 
road, vacillating and puzzled. Then she arrives, 
your new friend with the jet black bobbed hair, 
36 


We Three 

the easy jargon, and the superb self-esteem, and 
crosses your path. Her assurance awes you, and 
you decide at once to follow her. You believe 
that if you only follow in her footsteps, you are 
on the right road. 

I also have had my ideals, my models whom I 
blindly followed. But not until the day when I 
fully found myself, when I trod my own path 
and stood isolated and alone, did I really arrive. 

But you just follow the road you believe lies 
plainly before you. Perhaps then you will find 
the seed from whence your future shall bloom. 
Or, perhaps—who knows?—you will find on the 
road the world’s most wonderful man, who, as I 
know now, does not need to be without faults and 
blemishes, but just the one who speaks the right 
words to your heart. 

You ask me if I have ever cried with joy. Yes, 
oh, yes! I suppose once in the life of every human 
being, gladness and happiness come so violently 
surging through the being, that the heart cannot 
hold it all, and tears burst forth. 

You wrote in your last letter that you admire 
me because I dare to act—and, at that, in a 
foreign language. 

But English was my father’s language—not 
my mother’s; she was French. If you ever meet 
the world’s most wonderful man, I would wish, 

37 


We Three 

for your sake, that he was of your own nation¬ 
ality. Education and the customs of daily life 
are different in every country, and regardless of 
how madly in love one is, there comes the day 
when the different points of view must clash. 

Mother and Father were much in love, but 
they tortured each other in spite of themselves. 
Each one held doggedly to his own views, and, 
one day, they separated. 

I lived with Mother for two years, and when 
she died, my father took me away from Paris. 
He was an English civil engineer, and traveled 
a great deal. I went everywhere with him. He 
could not get along without me. 

He had been longing for me every day for two 
years, and it was as if this longing had intensified 
his love for me. He wanted to rear me in his 
own manner, and often he would talk bitterly 
about how inefficient and confused I had become 
from the French manner of education. 

So, like you, I was brought up by a man. 

I felt I was very fortunate to accompany my 
father on his travels. We lived now here, now 
there—the whole world was ours. Wherever we 
stopped, a new home was created for us. 

“We two,” Father so often said in the tender- 
est voice, while he pressed me closely to his heart, 
38 


W e Three 

“We two.” That was our alliance in which no 
outside power could interfere. 

We went to Denmark, to a little provincial 
town on the east coast of Jutland. Father was 
to supervise the installation of Danish cream 
separators and other machinery into a great dairy 
under construction there. He was very busy, 
and we were rarely together, except in the even¬ 
ing. There were many people who wanted to 
look after me, but they did not understand me, 
and I did not understand them. For the first 
time, I was in a country in which the language 
was an obstacle to me. 

I was growing very rapidly just then, pale and 
scrawny, and Father became very anxious about 
me. At last I was sent out to the country, follow¬ 
ing the advice of a physician. 

But even then I did not gain in weight and 
health. I walked among these strangers still 
more lonely and forlorn. I longed for Father 
with whom I was wont to share all my thoughts. 

I ate like a bird, the lady of the house said. 
And every night I cried myself to sleep between 
the heavy, multi-colored blankets in the great 
guest chamber. 

I called for Father in my sleep, and woke up 
in terror when I heard my own voice. 

At last some one became frightened at my con- 
39 


We Three 

dition, and wrote to Father. But I knew noth¬ 
ing about it, as it was to be a surprise for me. 

I remember I sat on the high stone steps, play¬ 
ing with some pebbles, when the carriage which 
had been down to the station drove into the yard. 

I looked up indifferently, but at that instant I 
saw my father and uttered a cry. 

I raced to him; I moaned while I ran. I could 
not get a sound through my lips for the choking 
sensation in my throat. 

Father immediately jumped from the carriage 
and took me in his arms. His voice was also 
hoarse with suppressed emotion when he pressed 
me to his heart and whispered in his tenderest 
tone: “We two.” 

With my arms around his neck, I sobbed for 
joy. I cried out all my longing, all my feeling 
of loneliness there, on his breast. 

We did not part for a moment all day long, 
and the next day he took me into town with him. 
Never, never again would he be without me! 

That was the first time I wept for joy. 

Two months later we parted forever. Father 
died suddenly, just the day he laid the finishing 
touch to his work there, the day before we were 
to return to England. But the day he died, I 
gained a new friend, the only one I have ever had 
AO 


We Three 

beside the two who have been nearest to me in 
life,—my father and my husband. 

Father became ill while sitting on a bench near 
the dairy. He had gone there the last evening 
to take a final look at his work before he left. 

He was brought home, dying, and a few min¬ 
utes afterwards he drew his last breath. 

I stood without tears as if turned into stone 
when they laid him on the sofa. The rooms be¬ 
came filled with strangers, but I did not see them. 

Then he came—the aristocratic old gentleman 
who lived near the hotel where we were. He did 
not come as the other noisy, scared people, but 
entered, silently and gravely. My eyes met his, 
which were filled with tears, expressing the deep¬ 
est compassion for the lonely foreign child. 
Without realizing what I was doing, I threw my 
arms around his neck, and wildly sobbing, I kept 
repeating these words: 

“I haven’t a father any longer.” 

He pressed my hand silently and took me away 
from there. My trembling little hand rested con¬ 
tentedly in his, and I followed him as if it were 
the most natural thing in the world. 

I lived in his house. I had only distant rela¬ 
tives who had never seen me and had no interest 
in me. Matters were therefore easily arranged 
in regard to my adoption by him. 

U 


We Three 

I grew up in his beautiful home in the calm, 
peaceful atmosphere of a small provincial town. 
I went to school there. I became a Dane. 

Years after, in his home, I met your father,— 
and our wedding took place there. Shortly after 
that, my only friend died. 

That time the tears came as a vent for all 
happiness and all sorrows. But I have also cried, 
as you said in your letter, from utter joy, over 
the great, the wonderful, the incomprehensible; 
over the fact that I have strength and will and 
talent. 

That was on the first night I conquered my 
audience, when I stood on the stage with the 
plaudits thundering about me, and I felt as if the 
sun were rising higher and higher, scattering all 
clouds, all sorrows. 

That night I thought I had won a lasting vic¬ 
tory, but in time I found that the laurel wreath 
of art has to be won over and over again. 

You asked me how I struggled through the 
battle, if anyone gave me a helping hand. 

More than any living being could, did the 
memory of my two dead friends help me, my 
own father and my adopted father. They had 
believed in me and loved me, and for the sake of 
them I conquered myself and my own rebellious 
spirit. 

42 


We Three 


Those two would never have approved of my 
actions when I left home. But they would have 
understood that I acted as I was bound to, fol¬ 
lowing the dictates of my own unbalanced nature. 
They would have forgiven me and continued to 
believe in me, and their faith in me, which they 
carried with them to their graves, I could not 
destroy. 

But what helped me as much as anything else 
was the opposition I met. There are people born 
to a peaceful life; there were others born to a life 
of striving and struggling, and each one carries 
the lot meted out to him. I have had to struggle 
hard on my road to success, but I was tempered 
by it, and I do not pity myself, for I do not know 
what I should have done with repose. 

It is late now, and I must finish. 

While I read this letter through, I become 
aware of the difference between your letter to 
me and my answer to you. Yours is filled with 
visions and hopes of the future; mine with mem¬ 
ories of the past. 

The richness of your life lies hidden in the fu¬ 
ture. The past is the sumptuous spring from 
which I draw sorrow and joy, dearly bought ex¬ 
periences, with which I augment and heighten 
my art. Every age has its well to draw from, its 
dreams to live upon. 

43 


We Three 

Now you know so much more about your un¬ 
known mother. Little by little, you shall learn 
to know me through my letters, and only then 
can you judge if I am worthy of your love. 

I am anxious to know how Father will react 
toward your decision. Tell me everything that 
happens. 

Kiss him once more for me; kiss him on the 
kind grandfather wrinkles, but do not mention 
my name. Never mention it. It will only hurt 
him. 

Good-night, my darling little girl! 

Mother. 


44 


Hotel Titlis, Engelberg. 

January 26 . 

Dear Mother: 

It has happened. I have won, and the fight 
was neither hard nor long. The whole thing 
came so unexpectedly. And now, well, now I 
stand at the gate, proud, but slightly scared. It 
is not the same feeling of joy which caught me 
when I stood on the peak of Mount Titlis. 

I am afraid, afraid that perhaps I have made 
the wrong choice, afraid that, after all, I may not 
be equal to the task. Whenever I think of my 
friend who never for an instant ceases to believe 
in her abilities and power, I become still more 
frightened. 

My panic alone seems to me to be an indication 
that perhaps I have made an error. 

However, you must not think that I show any 
outward signs of my doubts. To all appear¬ 
ances, I am as calm and sure of myself as she 
was—and I catch myself thinking that she, too, 
perhaps was only outwardly so. Or can self- 
confidence become a habit? Perhaps! 

There are days when everything seems to go 


We Three 


against me. As the day before yesterday, for 
instance. 

It started with my friend’s going away. We 
did not fall crying upon each other’s necks at 
the station. I think it would have been as im¬ 
possible for her as for me. We parted with an 
“auf wiedersehen in Copenhagen,” but I do not 
believe that either of us thought we would meet 
again. 

At school I always had the reputation of being 
unfaithful to my friends, because I did not go 
about with the same ones for years at a stretch. 
Oh, I admit I am fickle. I greedily hang on to 
every new person I come in contact with, trying 
to draw from them their experiences, opinions, 
thoughts, and observations, and when I have 
squeezed the lemon thoroughly, I throw it away. 

I could have learned a great deal more from 
my new friend, but it was she who first squeezed 
me thoroughly and my vanity was wounded. 

On the same day I had expected a letter from 
you, and none arrived. That was really the day’s 
keenest disappointment, even though it was my 
fault, as I had calculated wrongly. 

In the afternoon I went skiing with a young 
Mr. Donald from London. In vain did I keep 
the conversation going on the subject of “the 
theatre” in the hope that he would mention your 
A6 


We Three 

name. But he did not, and I was on the verge 
of tears. 

Once I was on a Christmas vacation with 
father in Norway, so I am not an absolute idiot 
when it comes to skiing. But I am not par¬ 
ticularly skilful, and he was. 

I have always liked him because he treats me 
like a hoy and never pays me any compliments, 
but it was really not necessary for him to choose 
one of the most difficult hills which has two turns 
and a fairly long jump. 

Of course it would never occur to me to let 
him see that I was afraid. I raced along, again 
and again, and continually lost my balance on 
the first turn or jump, and presto! there I was, 
lying in the snow. I would not have minded it, 
but I kept on rolling and sliding down, in the 
wake of the skiis and the sticks, which continued 
their difficult descent. 

I wanted to learn it to perfection, and at last 
I persuaded Mr. Donald to let me try his skiis. 
They are furnished with straps so that they can 
be fastened to the feet. They do not fall off in 
the jumps, but they are dangerous if you 
stumble, for that very reason. 

I cleared the first turn beautifully, also the 
jump, and faster and faster I went. It was im¬ 
possible for me in this wild race to retain my 
47 


We Three 


control over those skiis, which were so much 
heavier than my own. I fell at the last turn, was 
thrown forward and sideways, felt a stinging pain 
in my left foot which I could not get loose, and 
kept on sliding, with those heavy, impossible skis 
still on my feet. 

Mr. Donald, who stood at the foot of the hill, 
stopped me and unstrapped the skiis. He was as 
pale as a ghost, and insisted that we return home. 
We decided to walk instead of ski to the hotel, 
for my foot was still hurting me. 

I find it somewhat difficult to tell what hap¬ 
pened next. I feel that I have no right to tell 
it, as it concerns another person too, but I have 
promised to write you about everything that 
happens to me, and it is a question to which I 
must have an answer. 

Do you believe that a young girl is entirely 
responsible if a young man proposes to her? I 
mean, could she prevent it, and ought she to do 
so if she does not want to accept him? 

Of course I do not mean those insufferable 
girls who keep a collection of their conquests, so 
to speak, and boast of them afterward. There 
exists a type of modern girl which is not averse 
to a kiss behind the door, and is supposed there¬ 
fore to be considered more mature mentally than 
the rest of us. As a matter of fact they are less 


We Three 


so. If they had any idea what love really means, 
they would not promiscuously portion it out to 
Tom, Dick and Harry, but keep it intact until 
the right one comes along. But do you for an 
instant believe that I could have—well, yes— 
have prevented Mr. Donald from proposing to 
me, for that was what he did on our way back. 

I assure you it never occurred to me that he 
was in love with me. I do not know if I am dif¬ 
ferent from other young girls who insist that one 
is always conscious of such things. I have never 
been conscious of them. I have the reputation 
of being able to keep the young and too venture¬ 
some bloods at a distance with almost too much 
impudence. But I do it because they irritate me, 
and not because I am afraid they might propose 
to me. Thank heavens I am not as conceited 
as that! 

And now here is Mr. Donald, who was always 
so nice and sweet. I do not understand it. His 
voice suddenly became so strange, and there was 
something in his eyes that frightened me. Then 
it dawned on me that he was on the verge of 
proposing, and I stared at him, terror-stricken. 

“No! no! no!” I said, alarmed and on the point 
of tears, and he kept silent, while his head 
dropped forward on his breast, and his face 
turned as white as a sheet. 

49 


We Three 

It was strange to see, and made me very un¬ 
happy. The pain in my foot became worse, but 
I did not dare to ask if I might lean on him 
for fear that he would misinterpret my meaning. 
Besides, he carried the skiis and the sticks. When 
we reached the hotel, I hurried to my room, be¬ 
fore he had time to say anything more. 

My foot had swelled to such a size that I was 
compelled to cut the shoelaces in order to get the 
shoe off. I went to bed at once and sent word 
to Father. He saw that I had been crying, but 
thought it was because of the pain in my foot. 
It was impossible for me to sleep. I could not 
forget Mr. Donald’s unhappy face. It seemed 
to me that I had treated him brutally and heart¬ 
lessly, and regretted that I had not tried to make 
him understand me. He was undoubtedly more 
wretched than I was. 

At ten o’clock Father came up again to see 
me. Was my foot any better? They were danc¬ 
ing downstairs, and Mr. Donald was there, too. 
I was surprised, and no less so when I received 
a note the next morning (yesterday), in which 
he asked me to forget what he had said. He had 
forgotten himself on the spur of the moment. 

I had had a sleepless night. The blankets 
seemed to lie like lead on my foot, but at last 
I hit upon the idea of putting my foot into my 
50 


We Three 

waste basket, and putting the blankets on top. 
That helped. 

Late in the afternoon the doctor called. It 
was the usual procedure. He listened to my 
lungs. I believe he would have done that if I 
had told him that it was my appendix which hurt 
me. Always those lungs. The foot did not par¬ 
ticularly interest him. I had strained a muscle 
. . . bandages ... a few days in bed. 

But he told Father that my lungs were now 
perfectly well. They spoke very earnestly 
together. 

The doctor said: “You can go home any time 
now, but your daughter needs something to oc¬ 
cupy her mind.” 

Father answered: “At home she is interested 
in many things: books, theatres, friends and so¬ 
cial affairs in general.” 

The doctor looked at him seriously, and said, 
“No. I mean work.” 

Then they continued their talk outside in the 

hall. 

A servant brought a box of flowers from a 
young Frenchman. He had heard of my acci¬ 
dent, but hoped soon to have the pleasure of 
dancing with me again. I sent the servant over 
to the postoffice to ask if there was any letter 
51 


We Three 

from you. There was, and time flew while I 
read it. 

I feel like a different and superior being, now 
that I know I have a French grandmother and 
an English grandfather. There aren’t many who 
can boast of such an ancestry. 

You write that they were not very happily 
married because they belonged to two different 
nations, and that you hope I will eventually 
marry a man of my own nationality. But you 
did not do that yourself in spite of your knowl¬ 
edge and experience, and when all is said and 
done, I am half English, don’t you know. By 
the way, Father’s parents had two widely di¬ 
vergent natures, although of the same nation¬ 
ality. 

I have often asked Father how on earth it 
could occur to a rather solid, heavy landowner 
from the moors of Jutland to marry such a slen¬ 
der, delicate and slightly snobbish young society 
girl as I imagine Grandmother must have been 
in her youth. His only answer is that Grand¬ 
father had a great sense of humor. 

It is too bad that he died so young. Other¬ 
wise Grandmother would not have moved to 
Copenhagen. Just think! I could have spent 
my summers on his moors instead of tramping 
52 


W e Three 

from one seaside resort to another, for I don’t 
call that being in the country. 

Did you know Grandfather? Did you meet 
Father there on the farm? I should like to know 
if it is true that no one can plow a furrow as 
straight as he, nor drive a team of horses as well. 

I am inclined to believe him, for he is a sports¬ 
man to his finger tips. When he drives the 
automobile, I feel perfectly safe. It would not 
matter how suddenly something might cross our 
path, he would be sure to steer clear of it. His 
eye is so calm and steady, and his face almost 
transfigured when he drives through a crowded 
street. 

I should think he could manage a pair of high- 
spirited horses in the same calm, steady way, 
and it would be impossible to feel unsafe. 

I look forward to the moment when my foot 
is well again, for then we are going home, and 
I shall race across the continent with my own 
big daddy at the wheel. 

I am so proud of him, but now when I have 
read your letter, I can see how different he is 
from your father. Father never says, “we two,” 
but “for your sake.” I would rather that it 
should be “we two” though; it is so beautiful. 

Yesterday afternoon he came into my room, 
smiling, with his hands behind his back. 

53 


We Three 

“Tell me now what little provincial journalist 
is smitten with you?” he asked, jestingly. 

I paled and blushed alternately and stretched 
out my hand. 

“Is there a letter for me?” 

“Yes. With the address of the newspaper on 
the envelope.” He laughed. “Do you want to 
enjoy it in privacy?” 

“No, Father. Don’t go,” I begged, and he sat 
down obediently and looked away while I read. 

I knew it was an answer from the paper I had 
written to and impatiently I tore open the en¬ 
velope. I was accepted! 

Despondent over having nothing to do, and 
over my general uselessness, I had daily scanned 
the “help wanted” column in the Danish papers. 
Just about the time that my friend arrived here, 
I found an advertisement offering a position to 
a young man as cub reporter. I applied for the 
job. 

I wrote a humorous letter to the editor, in 
which I excused myself for not being a young 
man. Evidently my epistle amused him. At 
any rate, here I was with his answer in my hand. 
He wrote that it was just such lively stuff they 
needed for the paper; that I would receive the 
munificent sum of forty kronen a month, and 
that I must telegraph my decision at once. 

54 


We Three 


Mother, dear, I did not tell you about it in 
my last letter, it was all so uncertain. I really 
did not have much hope, and the offer came like 
lightning out of a clear sky. 

I looked at Father. He sat in his chair, 
smiling. 

“Father,” I said, trying to speak as casually 
as possible, “have you been thinking of what the 
doctor said about work?” 

And his answer was the last thing in the world 
I had expected. He said: 

“Yes, I have been thinking about it. The doc¬ 
tor and I had lunch together, and we spoke about 
you. I think it would be better if you chose the 
work you would like to do, yourself.” 

“Oh, Father!” I opened my arms to give him 
a big hug. He sat down on the knee of my bad 
leg, but I forgot to yell in my excitement. 

I showed him the letter, and his face became 
grave. He had not expected that we should have 
to part. There were so many things I could do 
in Copenhagen. I did not need to take myself 
too seriously. Why bury one’s self in a small 
provincial town when one is young and full of 
life? But he had promised me, and you know 
that Father always keeps his promises—always! 

“Vera, dear,” he said, tenderly, and took my 
hand, “don’t stay there too long. I can’t get 
55 


We Three 

along without you, but I will do it for your 
sake!” 

“Father,” I cried, and hugged him again. “We 
two.” I thought of you and your father when 
I said it, and Father took off his glasses which 
had become slightly moist. 

“We two,” he repeated. “Dear little child! 
We two!” 

And already, only two days later, I am 
frightened. 

Father is anxious to get home. He has told 
me that there are some business matters he has 
to attend to. For that reason he is really glad 
to go, in addition to the fact that I am well 
again. He has been puttering with the auto¬ 
mobile all day long. A little while ago, when 
he came in, he had a black smudge on his nose, 
but it was really becoming to him. Everything 
is becoming to him, don’t you think? I nodded 
to him and said, “We two.” He did not know 
that I meant “we three,” and that it was you 
who had taught me the right words. 

Yours, 

Vera. 

P.S. Please send your next letter to, General 
Delivery, Charlottenlund. 


56 


London, February 2. 


Darling Vera: 

So you are again in Denmark. In my thoughts 
I have accompanied you and Father on your 
auto trip, up through Germany, away from the 
snow and the sun and the clear air of the Alps, 
into the darkness, and the desolate plains, the 
fog and the rain. Through silent forests of ever¬ 
green you go, speeding along torpid rivers, 
farther and farther north, on roads of sand and 
pebbles, out toward the ocean. 

Father sits at the wheel, calm and sure of him¬ 
self, enjoying the excitement of the sport, and 
you at his side, wrapped in furs to the tip of 
your nose. 

I know you well enough already to be sure 
you would not creep under shelter in the tonneau 
of the car, behind his back. You want to enjoy 
the speed, to feel the pressure of the wind against 
your face, to follow the turns in the road with 
your eyes, and count the milestones along its 
edge. Meanwhile you listen with rapture to the 
loud whir of the engine which fills you with 
nervous energy. 


57 


We Three 

Home! Home to work! 

And I see “y° u two” stand at the rail of the 
ferryboat that carries you across “Ostersden” 
your eyes sparkling in anticipation of the future. 
Father is tender and sorrowful, because he knows 
that the future which beckons to his little girl, 
will leave him sad and alone. 

But at that, for a little while yet, you are with 
him, and perhaps he still hopes deep down in his 
heart that you will change your mind at the last 
moment. The fact that he gave you his permis¬ 
sion, that he voluntarily renounced the pleasure 
of your companionship, that he only thought 
of your happiness, is a proof to me that life has 
also taught him resignation. 

At last you stop in front of the Villa in Char- 
lottenlund. It is ablaze with welcoming lights, 
and the rooms are filled with flowers. Grand¬ 
mother and Aunt Edith receive you at the en¬ 
trance. Coziness and warmth radiate from every¬ 
where. They carry you in triumph to your own 
rooms and unwrap the furs about you. 

Your own rooms! I wonder how they look 
now! When I left you, they were furnished to 
suit your infantile needs, with diminutive white 
lacquered chairs and tables, toy closets, naive pic¬ 
tures on the walls and shelves full of all sorts of 
story books. 


58 


We Three 


Now, when they are occupied by a pampered 
young lady, I suppose they look quite different, 
reflecting your own taste and individuality. 

Don’t you feel a slight pain in your heart when 
you think that you will soon leave your own cozy 
nest, and move into a lonely little room, far away 
from the loving care of those nearest you? 

For, whatever they are, one way or another, 
they certainly pamper and spoil you. 

And what do you think they will say, those 
two, when they hear what you intend to do? I 
wonder if you won’t have to look for the worst 
struggle there. I wonder if you will find the 
same unselfish understanding that you found in 
your father? 

You see, they don’t understand that there are 
human beings who demand that life be inter¬ 
preted by a succession of violent chords, and 
who cannot be contented to listen to the hushed 
and simple melodies of the home. 

Dear, if they but knew how often we who live 
in the very midst of the world catch ourselves 
listening for a homelike, well known strain, and 
are touched to the heart when we hear it. If they 
but knew that there lives in us a deep longing for 
what we left behind, for what we sacrifice—the 
sweet atmosphere of the home! And from that 
longing, eternal art is created! 

59 


We Three 


He who has not experienced what it is to yearn 
or be lonesome, does not know what real love is, 
and that is why we must go out into solitude, 
away from everything which binds us with the 
strongest ties. 

I see before my mind’s eye my former home. I 
see the table festively arrayed. I see, behind the 
vase of flowers, your father’s handsome, serious 
face, and I hear the slight quiver of his voice 
when he lifts his glass and bids you “Welcome 
home!” Already the grey day looms before him 
when you again will part . . . Poor Father! 

Why must we human beings always hurt each 
other—often hurting most poignantly those we 
love the best? 

You have already experienced that yourself. 
In your last letter you told me how deeply 
grieved you were because you had to hurt the 
feelings of a young man—a good comrade. And 
you ask me if it is not possible to avoid such 
things. 

I do not think so, and you should not censure 
yourself too much, for in this case, at any rate, 
you were without blame. 

In its first stages, love is mere play, a game 
of hide-and-seek, I am tempted to think, in which 
neither of the participants dare show themselves 
in their true colors. It may last for days, weeks, 
60 


We Three 


months. Sometimes you are sure; sometimes 
not. You are afraid to show your feelings be¬ 
cause they may not be reciprocated. You become 
cold and unapproachable in order not to betray 
your innermost self. Many times two people 
who were really made for each other, have gone 
their separate ways because neither dared to be 
the first to show his hand. 

Toward the man in whom you only see the 
friend and the comrade, you are, on the contrary, 
sincere and unaffected, quite without any calcula¬ 
tion or scruples; and this attitude, of course, 
might be misinterpreted by a man who is of an 
emotional and susceptible nature. 

So don’t worry yourself. Mr. Donald will 
get over it. He is perhaps already over it. But 
it is sad to lose your good friends that way. 

I wrote you that I wished for your sake that 
when you meet the right one, he would be of your 
own nationality. But when you do meet the 
right one, you are not able to pass him by. You 
must stop, no matter from where he hails, and 
must follow wherever he goes. Neither your own 
experiences nor those of others can help you in 
the least when you are in love. And I was in 
love with your father. 

How did it come about that your grandfather 
married your grandmother? you ask. I really 
61 


We Three 

don’t know. The French have a clever litttle 
saying which expresses the whole matter in a nut¬ 
shell : Les extremes se touchent. 

One thing is sure, and that is that no two 
people could be more complete contrasts than 
those two. He met her while she was learning 
to manage a house, as all Danish girls do, even 
from the highest walks of life, in a parsonage 
near his estate. She is supposed to have been 
absolutely cold toward his advances in the begin¬ 
ning, and perhaps it wounded his vanity and 
awakened his love of conquest, and she permitted 
herself to be taken by surprise. Perhaps, also, 
the thought of being able to twist the strong will 
of this man around her little finger flattered her 
vanity. 

Well, do you think that his infatuation endured 
much beyond her entry into his home, when she 
began to turn everything in the ancient manor 
upside down. She changed the old rooms, which 
were distinguished by an air of heavy solidity, 
into a luxuriously furnished society nest, where 
Grandfather never learned to feel at home. 

I believe I have told you that I met your father 
at the home of my old friend and foster-father* 
He stopped over there for a short visit on his 
way home, where he was to spend his vacation, 
62 


We Three 

and in his two days there we became much more 
than merely good friends. 

The day after he left I received a letter from 
his parents, inviting me over to visit them, and I 
went at once. 

Oh, dear! in the month following, we played 
just such a love game as that of which I have 
just written, alternately happy and wretched. 
Every other day I stood at the pinnacle of happi¬ 
ness ; and every second day I went to bed crying, 
with the intention of packing my trunks and go¬ 
ing away. 

But the following morning, when he knocked 
at my window and asked me to go out into the 
fields with him and watch the men at work, I for¬ 
got all about my resolutions and went with him. 

And, at last, when we were to part, each to 
go his own way, it dawned upon us both that we 
could not get along without each other. 

We did not doubt for one moment that our 
love was deep and eternal. It was impossible for 
us to imagine that a condition should ever exist 
between us as existed between his parents, whose 
wretched married life was always before us. For 
I soon discovered in the month I was there that 
everything between these two was over. They 
did not enjoy anything in common, not a thought, 
not a taste, not even the rooms. 

OB 


We Three 

As Father says, Grandfather had a great sense 
of humor, and I must tell you one of his practical 
jokes. 

The day I arrived there, your father met me 
at the station. It had been raining, but just 
as the train arrived the sun broke through the 
clouds. 

“The sun is bidding you welcome,” said Father, 
and smiled. 

It was not a long walk to the house, and 
Father and I, who had not seen each other for 
three days, and therefore decided that we had 
many things to talk about, sent the trunks on 
with the carriage, and walked home. 

We entered the hall unseen, and Father 
helped me off with my coat. Then he opened 
the door into the main living room to let me enter 
first. But I stopped, confused, when I saw a 
big sign right inside the door, which read: 

“Please wipe your feet well. The carpet is 
of a delicate color.” 

I flew out again, and started to scrape my feet 
well on the mat, while your father laughed. Still, 
when I walked across the carpet to pay my re¬ 
spects to Grandmother, who sat at the other end 
of the room and looked at me above her spec¬ 
tacles, I could not help looking behind me to see 
if I had left any marks. And ever after I had 
64 


We Three 

a feeling of insecurity whenever I walked about 
in this much-too-dainty room. 

I was told afterward that Grandmother had 
put up this sign because Grandfather could never 
learn to change his boots when he came in from 
the field, but always came bursting in. 

The first day the sign was there, Grandfather 
came in, as usual, but stopped to read it. He 
burst into laughter, turned on his heel, and went 
into his own rooms. He never again put his foot 
inside the door of the living room. But he had 
his revenge. 

Bordering on the garden lay a field which ad¬ 
joined that of the parsonage. Many times dur¬ 
ing the day, Grandmother visited this place 
where she felt at home since the time she had been 
a pupil of house-managing and where, as she put 
it, “there were people she could talk to.” 

She always went the same way, through the 
garden and across the fields to the parsonage; it 
was a much shorter cut than the main road. 

But when she came down there the day after 
she had put up her sign, she found the gate 
closed, and a six-foot barbed-wire fence in front 
of it. A sign exactly like her own was hung on 
the post, which read: 

“Go down the main road, please. The grass 
is painted.” 


65 


We Three 

Dear, I could tell you many stories from that 
place, amusing and pathetic. Only in the fields 
and woods was it possible to breathe freely; and 
so your father and I were there most of the time. 

I will have to put my pen aside for today, as 
I do not feel quite well. It is my head—neu¬ 
ralgia. I caught cold at the theatre last night. 
There was something wrong with the heating 
system, which suddenly refused to work, and it 
was terribly cold everywhere. We wandered 
about on the stage between artificial roses, in thin 
summer dresses, and nearly froze to death. For¬ 
tunately, at present, there are no more rehearsals. 
The play I spoke to you about has opened and is 
a big success. 

It was a great personal triumph, but it did not 
give me much satisfaction. On the contrary, as 
an artist, I feel that the piece is below standard. 

I am anxious to know if you really are going 
away to that small town, if you Jiave the courage, 
and if you have the permission. 

A thousand loving wishes, 

Your Mother. 

P. S.—Pardon the writing and the general 
slovenliness, which are all on account of my head. 


66 


Postal card. 

Main Railroad Station, 
February 14. 



Aunt Edith* Father. I. Mother. Grandmother. 


Dear Mother: 

Think of me! In a few minutes the train will 
leave the station for Jutland, and I will be left 
to my own resources for the first time in my life! 
Thank you for the letter! 

Heavens! how dissipated I am! Above, you 
see the champagne glasses from which the family 
drank to my health. I have permitted myself to 
send one to you, but it was unfortunately absent 
at the feast. 

Father settled the whole matter with Auntie 
and Grandmother, without me. They were 
highly indignant, and I am therefore absolutely 
sure I am on the right track. 

I promise to send you a real letter soon, but 
have done nothing but fly from one farewell 
party to another. 


67 


We Three 

I have no sleeper—Grandmother is blubbering 
—I hope the train waits for me—but I simply 
had to send these lines—good-bye! good-bye!— 
address letter, care newspaper—not General De¬ 
livery, thank heavens! 

Yours, Vera. 

P. S.—I hope you are rid of your neuralgia. 
I know of a treatment—shall I come to you? Ha! 
Ha! 


68 


London, February 20. 


Dearest Vera: 

Thanks for your postal card. Again, out into 
the wide, wide world—and all by yourself. I did 
not think it would be as soon as that. I had pal¬ 
pitation of the heart when I read the few lines 
you had scrawled down at the railroad station. 

You haven’t lost your high spirits, I see—or 
was the little “ha! haj” at the end of the card 
perhaps an outburst of nervousness? You can 
understand that I look forward to your next 
letter with great impatience. I am dying to hear 
about your new enterprise, what sort of assign¬ 
ments you get, what sort of people you work 
with, how your days are spent and what you do 
in the evening when you have finished your work. 

Where are you living? What people are there 
you can associate with? There are a thousand 
different questions I would like to ask. But I 
expect now that with your well-known talent for 
letter writing, you will paint me a word picture 
of the entire little amusing—or do you find it 
boresome—town in which you live. 

I wish I could pack my trunk and come to visit 
69 


We Three 

you. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? We would 
take long walks in the outskirts of the town, and 
in the evening we two would eat our dinner at 
the hotel. How we should talk together!—a 
thing one cannot fully do through letters, be¬ 
cause each question must wait so long for its 
answer. 

I regret that I cannot write very much to you 
today, because I am still quite ill and tired. It 
takes such a time for me to recuperate, because 
I must play at the theatre every evening. 

The piece is a great box-office success, but this 
success depends on my playing the principal role. 
I do not say so in a spirit of boasting but the 
producer insists it is so and was greatly put out 
when he heard I was ill. 

So I lie in bed all dayi and at six o’clock I get 
up, have my dinner, and go to the theatre. 

I must take pill after pill to keep the fever 
down, and when I return home in the evening, 
my sweet old housekeeper is there with a hot 
lemonade all ready to be served me in bed. I 
sleep very little, have bad dreams, and am deli¬ 
rious. 

Last night it was all about you. I saw you 
jump on the train when it was already started. 
You lost your balance on the step, and I saw 
Father catch you in his arms and hold you close, 

70 


We Three 

while the train went on its way and disappeared 
in the distance. Both of you cried, and you hid 
your head on his breast as if you feared that he 
would let you go. Did you catch that train? Or 
did you change your mind at the last moment? 
What does the dream mean? 

Perhaps nothing at all; only a reaction from 
your letter. 

I cannot write any longer. Perhaps you can 
see from my writing how difficult it is for me. 
But I must send you my warmest congratula¬ 
tions for your new life at once. 

“Shall I come to you?” you ask, and laugh at 
your own crazy question. You know a treat¬ 
ment. 

I close my eyes and think of you sitting at my 
bedside, laying your little cool hand on my brow 
and stroking it lightly and lovingly. And sud¬ 
denly my eyes fill with tears and I cry so that I 
am awakened by my own sobs. Still, I feel 
slightly better now. You have been in my room 
and have touched my brow. I will soon be well 
again. 

Good-bye, darling Vera! and the heartiest con¬ 
gratulations from 

Your Mother. 


71 


February 20. 


Dear Mother: 

Heavens and earth! I have been here five 
days and I haven’t written a word! Well, I 
hope that a letter from you will cross mine some¬ 
where out in the North Sea. Perhaps at this 
very moment you are writing to me—wonderful 
thought! 

Acclimatized! I hope I shall never be! I say 
to myself every morning when I arise, and every 
night when I go to bed, that this is only a step 
to something better, or I don’t think I would be 
able to stand it. 

This is a dreadful place, but beautiful. Dear, 
how I enjoy it!—and hate it! I have a good time 
—and am lonesome. Let me start with the pres¬ 
ent. It will be easier for me. 

Very well. I am sitting this very minute at 
my desk by a window looking out upon the yard. 
I have just had a conference with “Amtstidende” 
and “Stiftstidende” (our worst competitors, 
with whom we always fight, officially, but other¬ 
wise are friendly with), as to who should cover 
72 


We Three 

a high school meeting, a director’s meeting, and 
a revival meeting. 

I got the last. One has to put up with a good 
many things when one is new in the game. After¬ 
ward we shall exchange reports. 

But I must tell you about my arrival here. 
Some arrival, to use the king’s English! 

I slept like a stone as soon as we passed the 
sound. (I strongly advise a bridge across that 
narrow sound. One turns bolshevik when one 
is compelled to go out on a cold dark night while 
the lucky ones who have berths enjoy a comfort¬ 
able sleep. Perhaps I haven’t the right “swing 
of it.” I can’t help thinking that if Father had 
been with me he would have seen to it that I had 
a berth.) 

Xow, about the arrival. The conductor stuck 
his head in the window and said: “Hello, little 
lady! You get out at the next station!” 

I know of nothing worse than being called 
“little lady.” However, I forgave him, as other¬ 
wise I would have slept on to the end of the road. 

While I was combing my hair, I put my hair¬ 
pins on the windowsill (if it can be called that); 
when, oh horror! suddenly the pins disappeared 
in the crack between the window and the sill and 
I could not get them out again. 

So I arrived at seven o’clock, sleepy-eyed, with 
73 


We Three 

my hair down my back. I bought a piece of stale 
chocolate from a stale old woman in the ladies’ 
waiting room, and asked her with my most in¬ 
gratiating smile if I could not also buy a package 
of hairpins. 

No, she didn’t have any; but with a magnifi¬ 
cent gesture, she drew a couple from her own 
head and handed them to me. (Three cheers! 
ha! ha! I didn’t get those from Father!) 

Next, I telephoned to the paper, and the editor 
told me to walk up the main street. It is the 
narrowest street in the city; so it is called Broad 
Street. Walking in the afternoon on this su¬ 
perbly gay thoroughfare one sees nothing but 
faces glued against the window panes. I feel like 
sticking my tongue out at these critical “spiders” 
when I pass. I call them spiders, because they 
lie in wait for a poor fly whom they can devour. 

But the arrival. (The editor says I lack a 
sense of continuity. I suppose because new 
thoughts crowd into my head, and I must write 
them down before I forget them.) 

So! my editor, who possesses the aristocratic 
euphonious and thoroughly Danish name of 
Christian Petersen, is a very nice and harmless 
person. He never swears, never bawls you out, 
and practically never says a word, excepting to 
make a slightly ironical remark. He stood in the 
74 


We Three 


door, big and broad, in embroidered slippers, a 
long pipe in his mouth, and cried “stop!” when I 
was going to pass by. 

He told me to go to this place and that place, 
where I w^ould be able to rent a room. 

I followed his directions and in the outskirts 
of the city, with a lovely view of field and forest, 
I found what I was looking for. 

“Sure sure!” said the woman who opened the 
door. “We are used to them ‘news people/ but 
them fellows were always men!” 

I excused myself volubly because I did not 
happen to be a fellow who was a man, and she 
said perhaps it would be “sort o’ nice” for a 
change! She had a grin on her face through the 
whole procedure and the price of the room was 
eighteen kronen. 

“Goodness me! does the young lady think it 
cheap? The last one only paid sixteen kronen, 
and I was afraid you would say it was too much. 
But the young lady is much too modest. Won’t 
the young lady say that she will only take the 
room if she can have a bureau. Because I want 
one, and that’s the only way I can make my hus¬ 
band get one.” 

“What! no bureau? Why of course I want 
one! The idea!” 

She giggled happily. 

75 


We Three 

And the lower part of the windows are nailed 
down “so they won’t get too much air.” 

But what a lark it is to have my own room 
with a separate entrance and letterbox and every¬ 
thing. 

Mine host sleeps in the adjoining room. He 
snores terribly, but is otherwise quite nice and 
courteous. They vie with each other in trying to 
please me. My room has acquired all sorts of 
pictures and furniture, because I am so “modest.” 
I am the happy lessee of eight pillows on my sofa 
and on one is embroidered the neat little motto, 
“Only Half an Hour’s Snooze!” 

I eat at a boarding house on Broad Street. Up 
a high stoop and directly into the dining room. 
I am the only female at the table. Several dry- 
goods clerks eat there, two of whom have de¬ 
formed heads. They are very patriotic, and make 
long political speeches which already have ap¬ 
peared in the morning newspaper. Many of 
their diatribes are directed against that poor be¬ 
ing, Woman, and as I am the only representative 
of the sex, I have to stand for the whole deluge. 

I have a pretty sharp tongue and always an 
answer ready, but I am angry with myself every 
time I go out of the door that I have honored 
such boobs by bothering to speak at all. 

Besides these a neighborhood grocer takes his 
76 


We Three 


meals there who has a bad breath and picks his 
teeth. I am told that he is very rich, but also 
very close-fisted, and in spite of his unusual lack 
of manners and his infamous small pig-eyes, he 
holds that men with money can get any woman 
they take a fancy to! Ugh! 

The landlady has two sweet daughters who 
wait on the tables, but one rarely sees the man of 
the house. He has been bed-ridden for months, 
and to my great surprise, he sat on a chair at the 
window today when I came in. 

When the grocer started a rather smutty story, 
he said in no uncertain tone: 

“I do not permit such stories in my house!” 
'(Three cheers!) 

There is also a postmaster’s assistant, and a 
young office man who has promised to teach me 
to play bridge. 

They have taken that excellent stand never to 
say a word at the table. (I wish I had as much 
sense, but when I am so good at repartee-) 

Dear, dear, dear, if I don’t finish within an¬ 
other ten minutes I shan’t get any supper before 
“covering” that revival meeting, and I have 
hardly written anything! But I must tell you 
how I spend my day. 

Out of bed seven-fifteen (dark). Boarding 
house (breakfast). Fetch the mail for the paper. 

77 


We Three 


At nine o’clock, receive telegrams from Copen¬ 
hagen (five a day). Write a humorous leader 
for a column “Day by Day.” Proof-read. (I, 
who can’t spell!) 

Yesterday the editor admonished me to be 
more careful. The commas didn’t matter so 
much, for there aren’t many who understand 
them anyway, and that’s the only thing I know 
anything about! 

Then I have to write a verse under the pseu¬ 
donym “Poppy”, and besides all this, I must 
“cover” meetings, lectures, and so on, forever. 

The little town takes all its spiritual food in 
through the ear, and lectures and orators swarm 
around like busy bees. I have learned to write 
the reports during the meetings, or I could never 
get through. 

There is a sub-editor here whom I call “Field- 
mouse.” He is almost a “Copenhagener,” and it 
is generally conceded that he is a great lady- 
killer, despite his mouse-like teeth. 

Further, the business department, one elderly, 
straight-laced lady who tries to smile pleasantly; 
three telephones; reporters’ room; editorial room; 
and office—all in one. 

Oh, there are so many more things to tell! 

I spend my free evenings trying to write 
stories or poems, which I burn eventually. 

78 


We Three 

But in my letters to Father, everything is 
quite marvelous here. The dry-goods clerks are 
bright young business people, and so on, in that 
key. 

I am therefore glad to have you to whom I can 
tell the truth. To begin with, I found it hard to 
be ordered around—especially by the Field- 
mouse. But I have forced myself to get used 
to it. 

Expenditures. 

Room. 18 kronen 

Board . 90 “ 

Library. 5 

Cigarettes . 4 “ 

Total . . . .. 117 “ 

Balance—8 kronen for candy, etc. 

Father sends me plenty of pin-money, but I 
should like to get along all by myself. 

Of course I would have to get rid of my ex¬ 
pensive habits, for instance: buying second-class 
railroad tickets to attend meetings in neighbor¬ 
ing towns. The paper only pays for third class. 

Dear me! I must close. Duty calls. 

So long! 

Vera. 

P. S.—I like to interview people. Don’t you 
think it is fun to see through people and later 
expose them through their talk? 

79 








We Three 

P. S. P. S.—To begin with, I found it dif¬ 
ficult to understand the patois of these Jut¬ 
landers, but my colleagues were very kind in 
helping me. 

P. S. P. S. P. S.—I must be creating a sen¬ 
sation. The “spiders” are busy at the windows. 


80 


London, February 28. 


Dearest Vera: 

Do you remember what to-day is? Of course 
you do! Your father’s birthday! 

In the old days it was a festive season. We 
celebrated it all by ourselves to Grandmother’s 
great annoyance, who did not like to be cheated 
out of anything so important. But Father did 
not care for long speeches and other eulogies. It 
was of no interest to others that he became one 
year older; only to us. 

With whom does he celebrate to-day? Is he at 
home with Grandmother and Aunt Edith, or has 
he been persuaded by Grandmother this once to 
invite his friends to dinner, fearing the loneli¬ 
ness? Or will he dine out by himself, to avoid 
speaking about his longing, and to dream about 
the past? 

How strange and meaningless that we three, 
father, mother, and child, who ought to form a 
home, should be living apart, each fighting his 
own battle! You and I, lonely, among strangers 
and Father perhaps, is still more lonely in his 
home, broken up because his too delicate sense 
81 


We Three 

of duty permitted outside forces to invade it, 
which broke the harmony. 

I am not accusing anyone—least of all your 
father, who could not act otherwise, considering 
his nature and his bringing-up. But I have suf¬ 
fered so much, and now, when I am forced to 
think of the past through your letters, I some¬ 
times feel a little touch of the old bitterness, 
which burned in my heart the day I left my 
home injmger. 

Through all these years I have used my work 
as a soothing potion against my painful thoughts 
and dreadful longings. My naturally fine sensi¬ 
bilities have become hardened in life’s battles. 
The door which I, with wounded pride, slammed 
after me, should never be opened again. I 
would never come as a humble penitent and 
knock at it. I wanted to forget. 

And then, one day, the mail man brought me 
a letter with a Swiss stamp. The handwriting is 
known to me. I imagine I see my own helpless 
yet bold handwriting. The look of the letter 
alone makes me nervous. It is as if something 
within me shakes the bolted door; and as I read 
your letter, it stands suddenly wide open before 
my mind’s eye. 

The cozy warmth and bright pleasures of the 
home pour out to me. The want of all that I left 

82 


We Three 

behind calls again to me; and the child I once 
held in my arms calls to me. 

Is it not a miracle—no one has talked to you 
about me, and yet I have held a place in your 
heart? No one has mentioned to you what you 
were missing, and yet you have always felt a 
craving—the craving for your mother? 

And now it is hopeless for me to battle against 
it. Every day brings forth some memory; every 
letter from you or to you brings forth pictures 
from the past. 

For instance, as I dated this letter, I thought 
at once of the first time you were big enough to 
congratulate your father before anyone else. I 
see you standing in your long white nightdress, 
with your arms full of beautiful roses, im¬ 
patiently dancing around outside his bedroom. 
You are waiting for the maid to fetch the birth¬ 
day cake which you are going to give to your 
father. 

I see you, flushed with excitement, throw the 
flowers on top of the bed cover, while you try to 
crawl up into the bed. And when you succeed, 
you snuggle close to Father, who pretends to be 
asleep. 

You tickle him on the nose and kiss his eyelids 
and when he opens them in mock alarm, you re¬ 
peat again and again: “Happy birthday, Dad- 

83 


We Three 


dy!” You cuddle closer still and hug him tightly, 
and when Father asks you: “How much do you 
love me?” you answer: “I love you five miles 
long!” 

I sit at the edge of the bed. Father lays his 
hand on top of mine, looks from you to me, and 
smiles, “My whole little world,” he says, and his 
voice is so soft and tender that my eyes fill with 
tears. I am so happy! 

That was in the days before those two arrived. 

Dear, I wonder if it ever occurs to him that 
there were some things in my favor when I re¬ 
belled later on and went away. 

But what am I doing! Here I sit and write 
about the past and forget completely to thank 
you for your letter. It was very amusing, for 
I recognized all the types from my early youth 
spent in small towns. 

I thank you for telling me everything as it is 
and as you see it. 

It must look a little sordid to you after what 
you are accustomed to, but your keen sense of 
humor shines through the whole letter. You pos¬ 
sess the happy faculty of being able to laugh 
at the stupidity of others and to smile at your 
trials and tribulations. 

The windows and the spiders. Yes, I remem¬ 
ber how they used to frighten me when I walked 
84 


We Three 


down the main street as a little girl with my hand 
clutching my father’s. I was afraid of all the 
staring, inquisitive eyes; but inside myself I was 
raging. 

I did not understand that to gaze at new faces 
was one of the few pleasures the natives had. 
They knew their own townspeoples’ to the last 
line. 

They all knew that Mrs. Peterson had at last 
bought the new spring dress which her husband 
at first had refused her. They knew that the 
mayor’s daughter went horseback riding with 
Lieutenant Svane, and hoped for news from 
that source. They were fully aware of the fact 
that when Mr. Jensen, the dry-goods merchant, 
was seen for the third time in a month carrying a 
traveling bag, he was going to visit a “she” in the 
city. 

Later on, many years after, when newly en¬ 
gaged and arm in arm with my fiance, I passed 
in review before the same windows, I saw a famil¬ 
iar face in each, and was greeted with a smile 
from everyone. And I smiled back. I knew 
then that engagements, weddings, and funerals, 
were important events in the small town. From 
those sources they drew their spiritual and mental 
stimulants. 

Some day, when you have made friends with a 
85 


We Three 

few people, you will be amused to find out how 
busily the spiders spin their webs from thin air, 
and stretch their nets of nothingness from door 
to door, from home to home. 

In those days, every child in town knew all 
about the little English girl—how many dresses 
she had, what she ate for dinner, how odd and ex¬ 
quisite the underwear she wore, what she had 
said in this place, and done in that. I was like 
an open book to them, in which they read about 
foreign manners and habits—real fairy tales. 

And now I am here in this great ant hill, 
London. My name sparkles from a big electric 
sign in front of the theatre. The papers publish 
pictures of me in my different roles, but only a 
few know my real face and no one knows any¬ 
thing about me after I leave the theatre. 

How different a famous artist’s life is from 
what it is popularly supposed to be! The audi¬ 
ence, which only sees its favorite actress in a 
series of triumphant conquests, thinks that her 
life must be one gorgeous dream. It knows noth¬ 
ing about the labor that precedes and the fatigue 
that follows; they do not believe that from the 
moment she leaves the theatre her life is just like 
others—filled with the same petty sorrows and 
troubles, with the same desire for love and ten- 
86 


We Three 

derness, with the same craving for trust and ap¬ 
preciation. 

The same sorrows, the same cravings, yes! but 
many times intensified by the contrasts of her life. 

On one side of the footlights which marks the 
boundary of her double life, the enthusiastic 
faces, ardent eyes, outstretched hands which she 
can never reach. On the other side, when the 
curtain falls and she turns her back to the light: 
the darkness, the solitude, the dismal drive home 
to empty rooms where there is no one to greet 
her. She has only sleep to long for, and often 
that fails her. 

I suppose, now, you think I am a real weeping 
willow who refuses to see anything but the 
gloomy side of life. But that is not so, really! 
I suppose I am like all the other children of the 
muses. There are days when I live in the clouds, 
in a rosy world of bliss. But there are days 
when the same clouds gather dark and threaten¬ 
ingly about my head, force me down, and come 
on me like a storm. 

I have been out in the storm to-day. I was 
standing in the very center and looked through 
an open door into a well-known room. 

Forgive me! I shall not put my pen to paper 
before the sun shines again! 

Your Mother. 

57 


We Three 


Dear Mother: March 3, Midnight. 

Your letter reached me this afternoon when I 
came home from the office. It is midnight now; 
a deep black night, without a star in the sky, 
and without a star in my heart. 

Father’s birthday! I have forgotten it! I 
have forgotten Father’s birthday! The blood 
rushed to my head when I realized you had re¬ 
membered it. I was ashamed of myself. I have 
cried. My brain is seething with a thousand 
thoughts, and I am writing now convulsively, 
quickly, to finish before my eyes close with 
fatigue. 

Dirt and mud are on my shoes and legs. Just 
now have I seen it. There are black spots all 
over the many little rugs on the floor—black 
pools on the newly washed floor. 

For hours I have been tramping through driz¬ 
zling rain and mire on a monotonous, endless 
road, flanked by trees which were the only things 
tollook at. 

The fire is out. I feel cold. My cough has 
come back. I must change my shoes and stock¬ 
ings before I continue the letter, for I have 
promised Father to be careful. 

Father! 

How I thought of him while I walked on, mile 

88 


We Three 


after mile! You and Father. Why, oh, why 
did you leave him! My heart is still crying. No, 
he has no one! Me? No! I do not even re¬ 
member his birthday, while you do!—so many 
years after. 

Why are all children so selfish? Why am I? 

When I walked out there in the rain and 
thought of the disappoinment he will be sure to 
feel, I suddenly threw all the blame on your 
shoulders. Why did you leave him? Why? 
What are those duties of which you are always 
speaking. 

Now if you two lived together in Copenhagen 
and spoke about me, then neither of you would 
feel lonesome, and I would not suffer from re¬ 
morse. You would have written “Remember 
Father’s birthday next Saturday!” and I could 
have answered: “Of course! do you think I could 
forget Father’s birthday that we three always 
celebrate together?” 

It is altogether different now. It has never 
been the festivity that you spoke about. Not as 
far back as I can remember. The house filled 
with noisy guests, Father nervous and impatient, 
always with a speech about how silly it is to be 
happy because one is a year older, a little bitter¬ 
ness and irony in his voice; many toasts and hur- 
89 


We Three 

rahs; a tired “thank heavens, it is over!” That is 
the kind of birthday I know. 

And this time neither of us was there. My 
letter would have been like a ray of light in the 
day. I understand now why it is dreary and, 
dark. 

I did not write, and you could not. But why ? 
That is the thought which has been racking my 
brain from the day when I got your first letter, 
and the thought which I cannot keep to myself 
any longer. 

Why did you leave him? Why? 

To-night, when the only way I could collect 
my thoughts was by walking and walking, I went 
a good long way down the lonely road before I 
turned back. I am not afraid of the darkness 
nor of the desolation of a country road. But I 
was tired, so tired! I could hardly keep my eyes 
open. 

I would have liked to throw myself in a ditch 
and forget it all, but I felt that I had the courage 
at last to put the question to you. And with the 
rain whipping my face, I fought my way, step by 
step, and discovered I had miles to walk. 

I rarely cry, but when I do, it is so violently 
that my eyes are swollen for days. Father says 
that no one can weep like me. To-night I have 
cried as I have never cried before. I shall not go 
90 


We Three 


to the office to-morrow. My face is swollen and 
unrecognizable. My head feels as if sledge ham¬ 
mers were at work inside, and if I say that I feel 
sick, I am not telling a lie. 

But I now have a responsible position. 
Strange! It dawns upon me that I cannot be 
sick. Who will “cover” the farmers’ meeting at 
the high-school to-morrow? Who will do the 
proof-reading? 

The sub-editor takes a train early in the morn¬ 
ing to cover another meeting. I must take a 
powder, two powders, if necessary, but I just 
cannot be sick, and I cannot sleep late. I now 
have a responsible position! 

Lonely? You are lonely; Father is lonely; 
but I am not. I know why. You two have lived 
your romance: You do not expect a new one? 
you know that nothing greater or bigger can fol¬ 
low. It is all past and gone. But my romance 
is just beginning. 

There are people who cannot be alone with 
themselves. For those I have contempt. 

Sunday is my best day, for then I can enjoy 
a good book, or write letters or else I wander 
along the solitary roads, occupied only with my 
own thoughts. Do you know the poetry of the 
road? I have learned to know it. 

But when at last I go to dine at the boarding 
91 


W e Three 

house, I meet those unbearable clerks. Do not 
believe that I am contemptuous of the whole 
class, but these that I know flock together Sun¬ 
days like scared sheep and cheerfully confess that 
“it is impossible to be all by yourself. Sunday 
is the worst day of the week. One must play 
cards the whole day long.’’ 

They do not realize that they reveal their own 
mental deficiency. 

Yet, in spite of all my contempt, I feel sorry 
for them. They quarrel daily, so much that the 
fur flies, but on Sunday they cling to each other 
because they cannot be alone. They do not un¬ 
derstand what it is to live. 

Oh, that I could forget Father’s birthday! I 
was too busy with my own introspections. Some¬ 
thing is growing and seething within me. I 
cannot quite grasp it yet, but over here I have 
time to analyze even the vaguest and most ob¬ 
scure of my thoughts. I have rid myself of the 
habit of pushing them aside before I have reached 
a conclusion. 

The other day I wrote a fairy tale for our 
children’s column. The editor said, “You have* a 
slight talent”. It did not flatter me, but rather 
frightened me. A slight talent; is that not a 
curse? A great talent or nothing at all! I might 
become envious of the great and I have not yet 
92 


We Three 

reached that stage. I think it is a most abomin¬ 
able trait. 

But how is anyone to know if he has a talent? 
I have never had a desire for that, but the editor’s 
remark gave birth to one. 

Before you reached the altitude of the great, 
have you ever been attacked by the fear of a be* 
ing a little talent—a mediocrity? 

I tremble lest I should never become a person¬ 
ality, a somebody. Routine, experience, develop¬ 
ment. All that is gained through the years. But 
talent! 

My friend in Switzerland, you know, always 
declared that all those who really had the power 
never doubted their abilities, but were sure of 
themselves. But I am filled with doubts and 
hopes at the same time and cannot be satisfied 
with the editor’s consolation: that I will be a 
clever writer some day when I have mastered the 
technique. 

It is not at all what I want. No articles or 
books, but a play—one play. And at the same 
time I feel small and unworthy. Possibly I look 
at myself with new and critical eyes, and I ask: 

“What have you to tell the world that it does 
not already know? You, who are less than nine¬ 
teen years old!” 

A voice within me answers: “There is some- 

93 


W e Three 

thing,” but I cannot say it aloud, not even to you, 
whom I love and have never seen. 

If only you were here, you could tell me how 
to build a plot, you could warn me of the pitfalls, 
teach me the technique. My first attempts are 
hopeless. I feel it myself. The dialogue I can 
master; that is an inborn gift. But the dramatic 
construction and the theme! There is only one 
theme which is big enough for me, but I do not 
dare to tackle that before I feel that I can really 
work it out. It must be written not only with 
the brain, but with the heart. And as yet I do 
not dare to begin. 

Oh, dear, will I dare sometime? Have I the 
ability? Or is the whole thing youthful lunacy? 
Why should I be able when so many others are 
not? But, on the other hand, why should others 
be able and not I ? 

Yes, that is the reason why I forgot Father’s 
birthday, and that is the reason why I need soli¬ 
tude. So far, I have not been “taken up” by 
any of the “families.” I suppose I frighten 
them with my talk, and I am glad that they 
leave me alone. 

I live among people with whom I have nothing 
in common. When my work on the paper is fin¬ 
ished and I close the door behind me, I feel like 
a tourist in a foreign country. I bury myself in 

U 


We Three 


my thoughts, dream, my gorgeous dreams, fight 
my colossal fights—and forget Father’s birth¬ 
day. 

Now the darkness is waning, and far in the 
w r est shimmers a paling star, the only one I can 
see. I must go out again in the damp night to 
mail this letter. 

To-morrow? Yes, to-morrow perhaps, I 
would regret my words and burn them if this 
letter is still in my room. 

But to-night I have courage. 

Little Mother, I love you; you and Father. 
You two are not like the people I read about in 
the annals of divorce. You are both good. Good 
and wise. Why, then, can it not be, 

“We three?” 

Yours, 

Vera. 


95 


London, March 7. 


My dear, dear child: 

When I opened your letter last night and 
looked at your agitated hand-writing, I under¬ 
stood at once: To-day it is you who are out in 
the tempest. To-day it is you who have lost your 
footing, and are carried away by a flood of agon¬ 
izing thoughts: self-reproach, uncertainty and 
burning grief because you have brought disap¬ 
pointment upon another human being, a being 
you love—your father. 

Dear, how often have I not been torn by the 
same struggle! 

While reading, I was struck by the wealth of 
thought behind your words. It was as if we were 
drifting side by side down the same river. I was 
closer to you than ever before. I could take you 
in my arms and feel your warm heart beating 
against mine. I saw into your artist’s soul, where 
a chaos of thoughts, which have not yet been 
molded, were waiting for their release. And I 
understood suddenly that you have a talent, a 
richness of emotion, which urges you on to greater 
deeds than to report meetings of farmers, or to 
96 


We Three 

read proof on the second-rate outpourings of 
other people. 

Still, do not regret going through the mill, for 
it is through labor and struggle that your will 
is steeled, and not through the futile life of a 
visionary. 

For talent gets nowhere without strength of 
will to master its thoughts, and force their “Peg¬ 
asus” to go where they want to go. 

But solitude will help you more than anything 
else. The solitude of which you are not fully 
conscious as yet; which surrounds you and grants 
you the gift of its limitless wisdom. 

It has taught you to sound the depths of your 
own mind. It has taught you to listen to sweet 
and simple harmonies. It has taught you the 
poetry of the road. It has taught you to feel 
compassion for those human beings (the poor 
clerks) whom you never noticed before. Now, 
suddenly, you understand that they are void of 
that inner harmony, that sensitiveness which sees 
a friend in solitude and not a ghost. And it 
taught you one more thing,—to ask questions. 

When I received your first letter a burning 
fever surged through my soul. The blood rushed 
to my head. Heart and brain worked under 
high pressure. The dreams of the past were be¬ 
fore me. My thoughts strayed on paths they 
97 


We Three 

iiad not dared to walk for years. The letter I 
wrote you as an answer was the expression of 
this feverish condition of mind, for I yielded to 
my inner self as I do not remember ever having 
yielded before. 

When your next letter came you told me about 
yourself, about your plans and your dreams and 
about your and Father’s life together. Not by 
a word did you evince any interest in me or in the 
past. 

Suddenly I saw that my first excitement was 
the result of a morbid condition. My tempera¬ 
ture cooled. The dreams disappeared and yielded 
their place to calm reflections. 

Who were you? What did you want of me? 
What feelings had dictated your first letter to 
me? A need,—a longing, or the bewilderment 
of a moment of mental and spiritual chaos? Or 
did it arise from curiosity or just plain boredom? 
Did you mean more to me than a perfect stranger 
would? What point of view did you have? What 
influence had moved you, Father’s clear sense of 
justice or did you gauge everything by Grand¬ 
mother’s and Auntie’s dwarfed measures? 

How would you receive the confession I must 
make sooner or later if we two were ever to be 
more to each other than just indifferent humans 
98 


We Three 

who met by accident and passed on their way 
without feeling much of a loss? 

You dared not question. I dared not speak, 
for I did not know the one who was to be my 
confessor. 

When one has kept silent for a number of 
years until one becomes a stranger even to ones- 
self, there is only one thing which can lure the 
clear spring of confidence forth from the frozen 
ground, and that is the warm sympathy of an¬ 
other human heart. 

But you did not ask questions. Oh, of course, 
about little, indifferent matters,—if I had known 
Grandfather, if I had visited him and if Father 
could plow a furrow straighter than anyone else. 

And I answered you as I was bound to answer, 
letting the memories carry me away now and 
then to tell you of a few more things than you 
asked for. I advised you about your plans and 
your work but only in the manner of any other 
sincere and candid friend. 

In this letter, for the first time, you come to 
me with a question dictated by a genuine and 
burning desire to know: What has parted these 
two human beings of whose love I am the issue? 
What are the forces that have made them go their 
different ways so far from each other that I, who 
love them both, and whom they both love more 
99 


We Three 

than anything on earth, cannot reach out to give 
them my hands at the same time? 

And you shall have the answer. Not all at 
once in this letter, but bit by bit with all the little 
side issues, the links in the chain which forge 
together the destinies of mankind. 

It can touch us so tenderly and softly that it 
feels like a caress, but it can also tighten around 
us so that we scream in anguish. I have felt that 
and I thought then that the best thing I could do 
was to tear it apart brutally lest I should be ut¬ 
terly destroyed and lose my identity. 

At the end of your letter you ask me: 

“Why could it not always be, ‘We three’ ?” 
Yes it could be, my dear little girl, and while it 
was, there was no discord in our home; only 
tenderness and love and friendship. A day ar¬ 
rived when it became “We five,” and from that 
day on the peace was ended. 

And now I presume you understand what ele¬ 
ments I was referring to in my last letter when 
I wrote that they destroyed the harmony and 
created dissension. 

I know that you, with youthful assurance, will 
exclaim: “Why did father not put those two 
out of the house when he saw how much was 
destroyed for us?” 

That is how I reasoned when I was too young 
100 


We Three 

to have learned to take other people’s feelings 
into consideration. 

I could, perhaps, have cajoled and coaxed until 
I had my way, but I was too sensitive, too proud 
to be diplomatic on that point. That is why I 
met force with force and broke the chain inside 
which I felt I no longer belonged. I ought to 
have stayed with the ship, stayed with you, pro¬ 
tected you and given you all I had to give, even 
though I suffered under it. But I thought only 
of myself,—and I went. 

Afterwards, when I had burned my bridges 
behind me I began to understand what I had 
left behind on the other shore. Only then I un¬ 
derstood that I had deeply wounded myself, that 
I was the one who was punished because I had 
dared to rend asunder the fine heart strings 
which bind mother and child together. Heart 
strings, so tender, so fragile, that they quiver in 
the slightest breeze, and yet so strong that they 
withstand the hardest blows, and only can be torn 
apart by the callous hand of the egoist. 

In those days I thought I had the right to live 
my own life and defend my own poor little 
vanity. Now I know it was my duty to have 
stayed with my child, that her life was my life 
and that I should have taken pride in sticking to 
my task. 


101 


We Three 

The sense of duty of which I spoke and which 
I called false—I believe I still call it so, unfor¬ 
tunately—was your father’s unshaken sense of 
duty toward his mother and sister. 

I have told you that the relation between your 
grandmother and grandfather was not a happy 
one, but I do not think I have let you know that 
your grandmother suffered the worst ignominy 
a wife can suffer,—to see another woman come 
between her and her husband. 

Perhaps it was partly her own fault. I cannot 
help thinking it was, but it is natural that she 
was miserable about it. However, your father 
was still more distressed: he could not tolerate 
to see his mother so publicly disgraced, and he 
placed himself on her side, stood between her 
and the gossiping world, and took her with 
knightly grace under his protection. 

No wonder then, when the only thing left of 
an unhappy marriage (her home) was taken 
away from her that he felt he was in honor bound 
to offer his own. But I shall later tell you the 
whole thing from the beginning, so you can un¬ 
derstand how conditions over which we have no 
power can alter our destinies. 

You will understand how the mould of a hu¬ 
man being’s inner life can be recast by the con¬ 
ditions under which they live, and how two per- 
102 


We Three 


sons, both fairly upright and just, can reach a 
point of divergence when one or the other must 
succumb. 

You wrote in your letter—“You and Father 
are lonely because you have lived vour romance 
and do not expect anything new.” 

Yes, if the romance of life is only the love be¬ 
tween man and woman, then it is over and done. 

But there are other romances, other fairy tales, 
and they reveal themselves over and over again 
in new forms as long as life lasts. 

For me such a new one was unfolded the day 
you came to me, for I understood without your 
realizing it that it was your father who had sent 
you to me. 

He has taught you by his own exiamnle to be 
lenient towarfl your mother, to take her as she is 
and to love her in spite of everything. 

Father is right again. It is his views that are 
bringing you and me together again. 

You must never forget Father’s birthday 
again. I shall remind you of it. J will soon write 
you again. 

Au revoir, 

Mother. 


103 


March 12 th. 


Dear Mother: 

To-day is Sunday, slightly freezing, but the 
sky is clear. I sit here on a milestone writing, 
proud of my long walk. I will cheat this time 
and take the train home, but I have to wait a 
whole hour and the stove in the waiting-room is 
red-hot. I prefer the fresh air. 

You occupy my thoughts on my long walks,— 
you and Father. To think it was Grandmother 
and Aunt Edith who ousted you. I cannot un¬ 
derstand it. I have been thinking and thinking, 
I have turned and turned it, tried to look at the 
case from all angles, and yet, I do not grasp it. 

Grandmother and Aunt Edith! 

I am reading Herman Bang these days. 

From every page resignation stares me in the 
face: children’s resignation toward their parents, 
woman’s resignation toward the unfaithful hus¬ 
band, old people’s resignation toward injustice, 
poverty, humiliation. 

Were people really like that in those days? 
Were you all to sigh and think that things were 
such and could not be helped? And you,—did 
104 


We Three 


you not dare to cope with Grandmother and 
Aunt Kdith before you went away? 

I know what you will answer. You would not 
submit and that is why you left. But why did 
you not demand of Father that they go, and why 
did he not understand that that w r as the only 
just solution of the problem? 

Do not be wretched on my account. I feel as 
you do, that each has a right to his ow r n life. It 
is only strange that your happiness should be 
found away from your home. Don’t you think 
you would have had a fuller life if Father and 
I had been part of it, or Is your art sufficient to 
you? 

Yes,—Art— 

You write that I possess talent. How do you 
know? So far I have only written about myself 
and I am afraid I have given you a false picture. 
I have only spoken of my good points and have 
been silent about the bad ones. I have not told 
you that I can be wicked. Sometimes I feel a 
satisfaction in being malignant, in wounding 
people’s feelings; and I do not feel any remorse 
afterward. 

I can also be my own worst enemy. On my 
little solitary walks I will compose a poem, or sit 
a whole week working away on a novelette and 
when it is good, or as good as I can make it, I 
105 


We Three 

throw it in the fire and laugh at myself while 
the flames devour many hours’ labor in one 
minute. 

“Ten years from now,” I say to myself, “you 
will have found a hundred flaws, anyway!” 

He who demands much of life gets much. I 
demand a good deal more than my share. That 
is why I cannot be content with a little talent. 
If I am praised and if I feel a little progress I 
hear within myself a voice singing, “More! More! 
More!” And I set to my task with renewed 
vigor. 

Father writes me and warns me not to work 
too much. But I cannot help myself,—it is in 
my nature to go at top speed. I lock myself in 
my room and work hours at a stretch. After¬ 
wards I could sleep for twenty-four hours 
straight if I were permitted. For I do not know 
how to nibble at life. 

Oh, why can’t we live a hundred years in one! 
I have buried myself in a small town and I enjoy 
its pleasures and sorrows but it cannot satisfy me. 
I wish I could simultaneously be with Father in 
Copenhagen and with you in London. I am 
curious to know how it feels to die and at the 
same time regret that I cannot be both alive and 
dead all at once. The thought that things go 
on after I am dead can put me out of mood for 
106 


We Three 


days. Oh dear, why must one be contented with 
just a little bite of the infinite existence? I be¬ 
lieve it is excess energy. Sometimes it threatens 
to rend me to pieces and I am compelled to sing 
at the top of my voice in order to have an outlet 
for my potent vitality. 

And they tell me that I have tuberculosis and 
am “delicate.” Good heavens, what does it mean 
to be strong then! 

Father ought to see me now. I have rosy 
cheeks, and the more I work the stronger I grow. 

I am getting cold now. My fingers are frozen 
stiff. My teeth are chattering. I must stop. 
The train is starting. 

There went a page of my letter down the road 
—I caught it before it came to the pool—excuse 
pencil and illegible writing. It is not an easy job 
on a milestone. 

With my love, 

Your Vera, 
Aboard train. 

P. S.—I have not told you of the new arrival 
m town. He also eats at the boarding house and 
yesterday we went to the theatre together. That 
is very indecent according to our standards here 
but he is so amusing and the only one with whom 
I can talk. His name is Andersen and he is a 
civil engineer. 


107 


We Three 


P. S., P. S.—I received a letter from Father 
yesterday. He does not refer to the forgotten 
birthday by a single word. But I have already 
righted my wrong. Our letters must have 
crossed. 


108 


London, March 16 . 


Dear Vera: 

Thanks for your letter written on a milestone 
and with frozen fingers. I had quite a time read- 
it but I managed. Still I would prefer that you 
choose another desk in slightly more sheltered 
surroundings. I am convinced that it is not good 
for your health to sit on a cold stone a whole 
hour. 

Think of the anxiety I would feel if you be¬ 
came ill and could not write to me at all. How 
would I be able to endure the days waiting for 
your letters? Now when we have found each 
other and are beginning to understand each 
other I cannot do without the happiness your 
letters bring me. The thought that you may be 
ill and that I have not the right to be with you 
and nurse you fills me with terror. Promise me 
that you will never be careless again. 

You have read Herman Bang, and you ask 
“Were people ever really like that, in those 
days?” People, my dear girl, were then just 
as they are to-day. Some are strong, some are 
weak. Some possess will-power and resistance, 
others are vacillating and yielding. The strong 
109 


We Three 

conquer the earth. The weaklings are trod upon. 
There are poets who, overflowing with spiritual 
and physical health, delight in singing of the 
fairest and most beautiful things in existence. 
There are others whose hearts are like an open 
wound, ever bleeding for the weak, the failures, 
the old and the distressed. I suppose they feel it 
their duty to paint the plight of these unfor¬ 
tunates in order to teach the strong to be con¬ 
siderate, to understand, to shield and to help. 

When I was your age I also felt that the 
language contained no poorer word than resigna¬ 
tion. Now I hardly know anything worse than an 
old person who does not know how to submit to 
it. You ask many questions and the whole tone 
of your letter makes me nervous and restless for 
I hardly know how to answer you. 

I had made up my mind to tell you gently 
and quietly of all the circumstances connected 
with my life in such a manner that you would 
easily understand. It has taken me years to 
reach the conclusion that past incidents (events 
over which we have no control) may have a bear¬ 
ing upon our life which totally changes its 
direction. 

But your questions force themselves upon me. 
You want to know at once, without a subterfuge, 
and I feel compelled to answer you, but how? 

110 


We Three 

You asked me why I left Father? And why 
could it not always be “we three.” 

I left him because I would not live in my own 
home under conditions which corrupted my char¬ 
acter and which I felt were demoralizing. 

And then you ask: “Did you not try to cope 
with Grandmother and Aunt Edith before you 
went away?” 

Yes, unfortunately. But the struggle was 
neither very beautiful nor very honorable. I 
would not give you a home where two influences 
fought for supremacy and where bitter words 
and low chicaneries were part of a daily routine. 
I was in despair and bewildered. I felt that you 
might some day look upon me as a cold-hearted, 
evil and sophisticated woman if I flung down my 
gauntlet, or as a dull submissive clod if I didn’t. 

I did not want to appear to you in either char¬ 
acter. I wished only to be the person I was be¬ 
fore those others arrived. 

Oh, those days! Do you remember? No, of 
course you don’t remember me, not the least trait 
even. But I recall it all, our happy jabberings 
when I gave you a bath and put you to bed—the 
meals with Father and myself across from each 
other and you between us in your high baby chair. 
Or the early mornings when you were put into 
Mother’s bed and you sat and looked with big 
111 


We Three 


wondering eyes at us teasing each other while 
dressing. 

If you could remember all that, if you had 
been big enough to comprehend the harmony of 
your home, created out of our profound love for 
each other, I wonder if you could not realize that 
it became unendurable afterward. 

But you do not recall anything at all and you 
must therefore question. 

“Why did you not demand of father that they 
must go! Did he not realize that himself?” 

My dear little girl I could explain it all to 
you with one word if you knew more of life. But 
I fear that that word has never had any particular 
meaning for you, and you will therefore not be 
able to understand that it can play a part in the 
love-life of two people. It is the petty word,— 
money. 

“Has father not always had money enough?” 
you will ask, surprised. 

No, little girl. There was a time when money 
played a big part in our lives. It was when we 
were very young. Father had to build up his 
business and yet we wanted to make a home for 
ourselves. 

We got round our difficulties rather easily, 
thanks to Grandfather’s generosity. Your father 
went to him and laid his plans before him, and 

112 


We Three 


the two men had a long talk together in Grand¬ 
father’s office, while I sat in the garden, agog 
with excitement. Our future happiness was at 
stake. 

When Father came out to me the matter was 
settled. He had received the money he needed, 
but he was not as madly joyous as I had expected 
him to be. He walked slowly and the expres¬ 
sion of his face was serious and thoughtful. 

Your grandfather had told him a secret. 

In a fit of despair and depression he had been 
unable to withstand the temptation to confide in 
another man and he had spoken to his son as a 
friend and comrade. 

Your father knew—for that matter we all 
knew,—that your grandfather had had a liaison 
with a young peasant-girl who used to be their 
housekeeper and this was one of the reasons for 
Father’s unusual deference toward his mother. 
But he did not know until then about the child, 
a son, whom your grandfather brought up in the 
city. 

The elderly man had said with tears in his 
eyes: “I love that boy as I love you and I feel it 
as my right and duty to share my estate between 
you. The money I give you now you need never 
pay back,—it is your inheritance, but you must 
113 


We Three 


promise me to respect my provisions in regard to 
the other one.” 

It is a terrible ordeal for me to have to recount 
all these old and wretched affairs to you but it 
is unavoidable in order to make you understand 
your father’s action later on and do him justice. 

If I have been slow in telling you about these 
things it is only because I wanted to tell the truth 
about the others in as lenient a manner as pos¬ 
sible. I wanted to put forth all the exonerating 
circumstances in each case. If we two had lived 
our lives together and you had come to me for 
explanation I suppose I could have told you 
about it in such a way that it would not have hurt 
your illusions. I wonder if that is possible now? 

Your grandparents were not particularly dif¬ 
ferent from other people, neither better nor 
worse, but they were not suited for each other. 
Their characters and basic principles were totally 
out of harmony. 

Your grandfather was a robust, plain nature, 
and at bottom an extremely honest man. Your 
grandmother was domineering, without the ca¬ 
pacities necessary to rule. She was spoiled in 
her home, accustomed to having her way and 
utterly without desire to be of value to any other 
person. 

Your grandfather had been brought up in a 
114 


We Three 


home where the women went about their work 
quietly and gently, feeling it their natural destiny 
to create a peaceful and comfortable home for 
the man. 

Your grandmother had no trace of such a feel¬ 
ing. She wanted to be the central point around 
which everything else revolved. As she changed 
the rooms to suit her own taste without taking 
grandfather’s comfort into consideration, so she 
gradually subverted all the other traditions of 
the old home. And when grandfather did not 
find the sympathy and care to which he was ac¬ 
customed from his mother’s days, he looked for 
it elsewhere. 

After our wedding we often visited the estate. 
We spent our vacations and our holidays there. 

I was not always anxious to go, but father 
consoled me with the fact that we would never 
stay very long. And when we returned we al¬ 
ways found our own little nest more beautiful and 
cozy than ever. Your father readily agreed that 
Grandmother was partly to blame but he had the 
deepest compassion for her. 

Solitary and without a single friend she went 
about the estate—proud and unapproachable. 
Your father was the only one who gave her any 
affection. All the others were rather afraid of 
her, even though they felt a certain respect for 
115 


We Three 

her because of the proud manner with which she 
took her defeat. She would not hear of divorce. 
Was she to leave her home in order that a peasant 
girl should take possession of what belonged to 
her—her position, her name and her son’s name? 
Never! That was the way she reasoned. She 
stayed on, ruling her small world, and defied 
the gossip. 

And your grandfather let her do as she 
pleased. He tolerated her moods and gratified 
her wishes. It was all he could do for her. 

But his real home was with “the other one.” 
Often he stayed away for days and she knew 
where he was,—we all knew. 

I remember the first time he stayed away after 
all this had dawned upon me. 

I came down to dinner rather anxious to see 
how she would take Grandfather’s absence. She 
did not betray with the slightest expression that 
she was aware of it. His place at the table was 
set for him as usual but she never looked once in 
that direction and did not mention his name. 
When, three days later, he sat in his place she 
asked no questions, nor did she speak to him. 
He sat there at his own table an invisible shadow. 
He must have felt the icy coldness which 
emanated from her, into the very marrow of his 
116 


We Three 

bones, and which made the meal a sinister and 
dismal function for us all. 

Three years after your birth, Grandfather 
died, and we went over there for the funeral, and 
that was the last time we ever visited the old 
home which had been in the family for genera¬ 
tions. 

And then the will was to be executed and the 
estate divided. 

There was nothing to divide. Your father had 
received a small fortune in cash and an equally 
large sum had been settled upon the other son. 
The rest had been spent. Following his prin¬ 
ciple, “I ought to use it now or the other one 
will,” Grandfather had expended his money in 
a most preposterous manner. The mill had 
ground all its grain, it was empty. 

When it dawned upon Grandmother how con¬ 
temptibly Grandfather had acted behind her back 
by giving everything away without leaving her a 
cent, she became frantic with anger and despair. 

It was hard to look upon for all of us, but worst 
for your father. He felt that he no longer had 
any right to the money he had received. He 
would have paid every penny back if it had been 
possible but it was tied up in his business and 
to withdraw it would have meant ruin for all of 
117 


We Three 

us. I remember the summer night father and I 
talked over what should be done,—if there was 
any way out. We found only one. 

Your father was terribly distressed. He 
mourned for his father who had always been a 
good friend to him and he felt sorry for his 
mother and still more so for his sister. He could 
not understand his father on that point. It was 
as if the latter had completely forgotten that 
he had a daughter. Or had he no idea how mat¬ 
ters stood? Had he not understood that every¬ 
thing was gone? 

I had always pitied Aunt Edith the most. She 
is really not unpleasant, only completely under 
Grandmother’s influence,—her echo. It was the 
mother’s pride to bring her up as a society butter¬ 
fly. She was never permitted to soil her hands 
with any kind of work. She had her own saddle- 
horse, her own little automobile, her own rooms. 

Too superior to do anything and a little too 
plain and unintelligent to become such a lady 
of the world, as her mother planned, she stood 
now helplessly facing dire need. She had never 
been permitted to live her own life, never to think 
her own thoughts. As Grandmother’s shadow, 
she had lived side by side with her, bound by in¬ 
visible cords which pulled her back with the 
118 


W e Three 

slightest tug, if indeed she would dare wander 
away. 

That night we decided that we would share our 
home with Aunt Edith and Grandmother, until 
better times would come. 

How could Father act differently since he had 
received that money which he felt in justice be¬ 
longed to his mother? How could I, who wit¬ 
nessed his despair, who loved him and respected 
his opinions, do otherwise? Was it not my duty 
to take a part of the burden upon my shoulders? 
Besides, Father comforted me; Grandmother was 
not really bad, it was the conditions under which 
she had lived that had embittered her. She loved 
your father and perhaps,—perhaps, she would be 
another person altogether than the one we had 
known these last few years,—now that she was 
taken care of by loving hands and in happy sur¬ 
roundings. 

When the light summer night turned into day 
and the sun rose, we looked upon the future with 
confidence. 

Father took me into his arms and pressed me 
to his heart and thanked me because I stood by 
him in this crisis, and we promised each other to 
try and make Grandmother’s last days as beauti¬ 
ful and easy as possible. 

Shortly after, the estate was sold. The small 
119 


We Three 


sum left after all debts were paid helped to buy 
the villa in Charlottenlund. Grandmother and 
Aunt Edith were to live in the upper story and 
to eat at our table. 

We moved in three months after, and my mar¬ 
tyrdom began. It lasted for two years until I 
rebelled, hurt and exhausted. 

It is morning now and I am deadly tired. It 
has cost me unheard of strength to concentrate 
my mind and make) this resume. I do not pos¬ 
sess your skill in writing. 

There are so many other things that I would 
like to explain to you but to-day I cannot go 
any further. They must wait. 

If art is sufficient unto me? Do I believe that 
my life would have been richer? 

I do not know—not to-night at any rate, 
whether or not life is fuller lived in peaceful con¬ 
tentment and happiness, or if one’s soul and 
spirit are not enriched through suffering and 
adversity. 

To-night all I can feel is that I am so very 
poor, so tired and so griefworn, I long for you so 
much that I have a pain in my heart. I am 
wretched because the heavy task of telling you 
about your family’s blunders and mistakes has 
fallen on my shoulders, and I am frightened 
about how you will take it. But it has to be told 
120 


We Three 


and what I have unfolded to-day we two cannot 
ignore. We must run through the whole gamut, 
every stone must be turned, every knoll leveled. 
The straight and narrow path of truth is the only 
real way we can walk together. 

Good-night, my beloved child— 

Mother. 


121 


March 20th. 


Dear Mother: 

Your letter has filled me with terror. What 
are you saying! Grandfather and Grandmother 
do not differ so much from other people! You 
write this in order to comfort me. What a com¬ 
fort! Are all people like that? Most of them 
you think. All grown-ups. Oh Mother, not you 
and Father. No, no, it is impossible. But you 
have frightened me. If that is true don’t tell 
me any more. I want to be blind and deaf. I 
want to know nothing, nothing. 

You speak about those things as if they were 
the most natural thing in the world, but it is not 
so. It cannot be. Mother, it is impossible. 

Write to me that Grandfather was an excep¬ 
tion, that you said the other things simply to 
cheer me up. I beg of you to write it to me, I 
am so deeply depressed. 

I do not think at all. I cannot. I have not 
found time enough yet, and I dare not. 

Father admits that Grandmother was partly 
to blame. Yes, but did he not also feel that 
Grandfather’s liaison was a great shame, a 
terrible injustice toward her? 

122 


We Three 


If you say anything else you lie. But you 
are jealous of Grandmother because she has 
taken your place and that is why you speak 
so badly about her throughout your letter. 

Everything else she does becomes a reproach 
in your eyes. She is domineering without the 
power to rule; she is without desire to be of use 
to others, you say, and that is not so. She wants 
to be but she does not know how. 

How could they do it—both of them? I never 
want to see that house. Father writes that he is 
coming over here with his automobile to take me 
to see the place. But I will not go there now. 
I want to forget them both. I hate them. 

But why did she marry him and bury herself 
out in the country when she did not love him? 
She must have loved him in her way but he did 
not understand it. 

And the peasant girl probably forced herself 
into his good graces with Grandmother too proud 
to do anything about it. 

Ugh! how well I know the type. Don’t you 
think we have had housekeepers who have tried 
to make a conquest of Father? Do you think 
that he was happy? But do you think he used 
that for an excuse? He became furious. One 
languishing glance was enough for him to dismiss 
123 


We Three 

anyone. Then they became abusive. That is 
their reaction. I know it, I know it. It seems 
to me that I suddenly know many things I did 
not know before, much more than you wrote 
about. Oh, it is terrible. If I could only weep, 
but I cannot even think. If I could only write 
and rave. And of what use is that? The 
thoughts crowd in upon me just the same, and 
I am forced to get at the bottom of them. That 
is how I am. I cannot shut them out. They 
will come up. I have not the power to fight 
them. 

Grandmother should have gone away. It was 
she who was made to suffer. He had the other 
one for consolation. But perhaps she hoped that 
he would come back to her some day. 

And you take the wrong view of it all,— every¬ 
thing . 

As for instance you say that Grandmother was 
bard and cold when Grandfather returned from 
city trips. Did you expect her to dance around 
or fall on his neck with joy? Quarrelling would 
not have helped. She kept silent and was cold 
and distant. Perhaps she hoped it would awaken 
his conscience. 

Grandfather must have been a great egotist. 
How could he do it? And everybody knew it 
and gossiped about it and pitied Grandmother. 
124 - 


We Three 

And yet he kept it up. What a wretch he must 
have been. 

They shall not succeed in fooling me any 
longer, all those who tell me he was so fine. I 
won’t permit anyone to say a good word in his 
favor again. I will tell them. Yes, I will tell 
them I know everything and they will be silent 
and embarrassed. 

But are you all unconsciously plotting to¬ 
gether? A kind of mutual assurance company, 
perhaps? It is evidently necessary to keep the 
children in ignorance of their parents’ sins, or 
else the children might bring up their parents, 
not vice versa. 

Now I understand better why they are all so 
resigned. They are accustomed to thinking that 
people are like that, while we who have never 
learned resignation live in a world of unrealities 
you others have made for us. 

There must be exceptions and I am going to 
find them. But the exceptions are few because 
the plotters try to convince them that to be an 
exception is to be ridiculous. Now when I begin 
to think everything lies before me like an open 
book,—everything. 

That is all,— 

Vera. 


125 


Telegram 

March 21. 

Bum the letter unopened. A new one follow¬ 
ing. Vera. 

March 21. 

Dear Mother: 

My last letter,—it was no letter. Just an im¬ 
petuous and wild flare-up, which I now regret. 
That is why you must not read it. You tore 
the bandage from my eyes as I asked you to, and 
I let my fury out on you because you gratified 
my wish. 

I was hurt, frightened, raging. You spoke so 
indifferently about things which were crimes in 
my eyes. My thoughts ran wild. I had exposed 
myself to her. To her I had written about all 
the things that are sacred to me. And she is like 
that! She has not understood me. Perhaps she 
has smiled when she read my letters. She and 
I have nothing in common. And I felt ashamed 
of myself because I had deceived Father. 

One last time I would read your letters and 
then never again. 


126 


We Three 

But from every page your love and affection 
stared me in the face,—and I could not lose you. 

Mother dear, it was wicked of me to act the 
way I did. I am so afraid now you might have 
opened my first letter. If you have, you will 
understand that in my despair in hearing the 
truth about the people I have learned to admire, 
I strike you, who told it to me, because I have 
no one else to strike. And yet my anger should 
have turned against those who gave me a false 
picture of life. 

I write very well, my editor says. Now I laugh 
at myself. What do I write about? What do I 
know? What have I to tell the world? I, who 
as yet feed upon my childhood dreams. 

Labor of duty it is; reports of what other peo¬ 
ple say and think; what others do and are going 
to do—but nothing personal, nothing felt. There 
is room for feeling only in the charity columns 
when asking for contributions, and I have noth¬ 
ing to do with those. 

I think of my friend in Switzerland. She was 
right. I could be a journalist. I am one now, 
but I am not satisfied. I do not feel the desire 
for adventure and excitement, nor the craving 
for work at high speed, nor the hunting of vic¬ 
tims to be interviewed. I want to sit still and 
127 


We Three 

contemplate my stuff. I want to put something 
of myself into it, but that I must not do. 

“Impersonal, impersonal,” preaches the editor. 
“We are not interested in you . We want facts.” 

And I have learned to write about facts while 
my heart cries out for things outside of them. 

I understand now that I cannot give more—I, 
who dare not know the truth, who nevertheless 
ask for it and at the same time stop up my ears. 

Dear Mother, I see myself in an entirely new 
light now. I tremble over my own ignorance. I 
no longer wish to force my personality into the 
limelight. I will hide myself behind facts until 
I understand, until I am educated in life’s school 
and have grown away from my false world. 

I can wait. I know full well there will come 
a day when I will be able to give more to life 
than mere reports and news; to give something 
of my inmost self. 

You have opened my eyes and I thank you for 
that. 

I long to learn more from you. 

Your Vera. 


128 


London, March 23. 


Beloved child: 

I came to the theatre last night inwardly tom, 
—beside myself with despair. 

I came from a sick-bed. No, from a death¬ 
bed for I was certain when I left the sick-room 
that it was only a question of hours or perhaps 
minutes. 

It was a young girl, a faithful friend,—the 
only one at the theatre I have really liked. She 
has been through so much. Her fate closely re¬ 
sembles mine, but she belonged to the weak in 
spirit and body who, when they are stricken, fall 
by the wayside and bleed to death. 

I have been with her constantly for three days 
and nights except for the hours I had to go to 
the theatre. 

When I left her last night I felt that I did 
not need to go back. The hand-clasp she gave 
me when I left was the last. Her pathetic, grate¬ 
ful look which followed me to the door, I carried 
with me as a souvenir of an innocent, unselfish, 
loving soul who had been crushed to death. 

I had stayed with her to the last possible mo- 
129 


We Three 


ment. I should have liked to linger until it was 
all over, but my duty called me. The public, who 
wants to be amused, brooks no excuse. I had to 
go. 

I reached the theatre just in time and passed 
the doorman as the orchestra started to play. I 
have to be on the stage in the middle of the first 
act and I only had fifteen minutes in which to 
make up. In passing, I glanced at the shelf 
where the mail lies and saw under the letter S 
the well-known lilac envelope. 

A ray of light shot through the darkness of my 
soul. 

The Lord be praised that I had carried on 
until happiness again knocked at my door. 

Your letters are to me as bread to the hungry, 
as a cooling drink to the thirsty. 

I snatched the letter and flew to my dressing- 
room. My maid was there impatiently waiting. 
She started at once to unfasten my dress and to 
ask questions. I did not answer. All my 
thoughts circled around the letter. I tore the 
envelope, seated myself at my dressing-table and 
while she dressed my hair my eyes traveled 
hastily across the pages. 

“Don’t tell me any more,—you lie—You are 
jealous—You look at everything in the wrong 
light.” 

ISO 


We Three 


Your grief, your despair, spoke to me from 
every line, and I was the cause of it. My eyes 
became blurred. Darkness fell around me and 
through it I glimpsed far, far away the ghostly, 
white face of my poor friend. 

“Madam, Madam you must pull yourself to¬ 
gether !” 

My maid was leaning over me. “Here’s the 
gown, hurry,—a little more rouge on the cheeks, 
—and your lips,—they are white. Madam has 
not slept enough!” 

She did not let go my hand until we stood in 
the wings and heard my cue. Like an automaton 
I went through the part I had played so often, 
and while I stepped about on the stage, walking 
and standing where I was supposed to walk and 
stand, forcing myself to find the right tones and 
inflections, I gradually became master of myself. 

My nerves, torn to pieces by long days and 
nights of agonized watching, became calmer. 
Again I began to think clearly. 

And now I sit in my dressing-room between 
the acts and write. 

Your letter, which reached me at a moment 
when I was depressed and upset, pained me be¬ 
yond words. 

Your rebellious language revealed to me that 
you are just as impatient, just as frightfully 
131 


We Three 

irritable, as I was once when, rather than wait, I 
tore the foundation from under my feet. 

For a single minute I wished that you never 
had written to me, that things were exactly as 
they were before I received your first letter. 

I shall not hide from you that the whole tone 
of your letter hurt me. You even hinted that 
you thought I spoke disparagingly of the others 
because I still was angry with them or perhaps 
in order to place myself in a better light. IN'o, 
my child. I am not afraid to tell the truth about 
myself also, and you shall hear it if you have 
the patience to listen. 

There is only one thing for which I tremble 
and that is that we shall meet one day and grasp 
each other’s hand under false pretenses; that we 
will meet and later on feel compelled to acknowl¬ 
edge that we have been mistaken in each other. 

You write in your last letter that you can be 
cruel, that you find pleasure and satisfaction in 
hurting people, and that you have no bad con¬ 
science afterwards. I am well acquainted with 
that form of cruelty and it does not sink so very 
deep. It is a shell beneath which one hides a 
too sensitive nature. Do not try to tell me that 
you also are devoid of a sense of justice, that 
you will not, when you are over your anger, give 
those whom you wronged full satisfaction, for 
132 


We Three 

in that case I must keep silent and will not 
give you any more information. 

I was forced to tell you something about your 
grandparents which you would not like, and you 
were offended because I, of all people, should 
tell you. But it was necessary in order for you 
to understand the things that happened later on. 

I also know how it feels to arm one’s self with 
hard-heartedness. I did it then, I do it again 
to-night. I did not permit myself to acknowledge 
being beaten when everything fell in ruins around 
me, and life gave me such deep wounds that they 
never will heal. If I had done that I would long 
ago have been lying there, where my poor friend 
will find her last resting place in a few days. 

Nor will I permit myself, now, to be beaten 
by my own daughter’s injustice. 

You have asked. I have answered. Is it my 
fault that the answer was not what you expected? 

You don’t want to be told anything else. Very 
well. I shall be silent, but what I have written I 
cannot retract nor soften. 

They are calling me. It is work that helped 
me through a crisis to-night and once before. It 
will succor me again in the coming gray and 
dreary days. 

I send you my love, 

Your Mother. 


133 


Midnight, March 23rd. 


Dear, dear: 

I am at home. Your telegram was here when 
I came. I have it in my hand and I am so happy 
I must cry. 

“Burn the letter at once ” 

Dear it is already read. Your telegram came 
too late. 

When I left the theatre to-night I had my 
letter to you in my pocket. The door-man, who 
stood holding the heavy iron door open for me, 
stopped me and asked if I had received the 
telegram. 

“What telegram?” I asked. 

“The telegram from Denmark that came the 
day before yesterday. I sent it to your home so 
that you would receive it quicker. I did not 
see you last night.” 

“I have not been home for three days.” 

“But I hope-” 

I did not stop to hear any more. I ran to 
my car and ordered the chauffeur to drive—home, 
—as quickly as he could. 

“It is a rainy night, Madam,” said the chauf¬ 
feur, closing the door. 

134 


We Three 

A misty rain came down and a heavy fog lay 
over the city. It seemed to me the car was crawl¬ 
ing. It took an eternity to reach my house. I 
was terrified. What had happened? Was the 
telegram from you or from- 

I ran through the garden, rushed through the 
hall into the living-room and found the telegram 
on my desk. 

It was from you—and you regret. 

Do not be sorry that I read the letter. It is 
of no consequence,—now when I know that you 
did not mean all the severe things you said. It 
was as I thought, only an expression of your out¬ 
raged feelings. 

Or am I wrong? I await your next letter with 
impatience. 

Last night I wrote a letter as an answer to 
your first. I took it out and read it through and 
now I am in doubt whether or not to send it. 

I think I will wait,—at any rate until I have 
had the letter you promised me. 

I feel suddenly the effect of the lack of sleep. 
The words dance before my eyes. . . . 

The telephone just rang. My dear little friend 
died a few moments after I left her. They did 
not want to send that message to me at the 
theatre. 


135 



We Three 

Well, then, I can sleep peacefully knowing 
that at least she does not need me any longer. 

I will put your telegram under my pillow,— 
it will give me beautiful dreams. 

Good-night, my child. 

Mother. 


!136 


London, March 26. 


Dear Vera: 

Thanks for your beautiful, clever and sensible 
letter which reached me last night. 

But first and foremost thanks for your love 
which dictated it. 

While I sat reading it, it struck me how much 
more confident, individual, calm and lucid it 
was compared with your first letters. 

It is quite amazing to realize how you have 
developed during the short time you have been 
away from home and have stood on your own 
feet. 

When I first wrote to you it was as a mother 
to her child. I feel to-day that I must change 
the tone entirely and write as friend to friend. 
The first step one must take to gain a knowledge 
of life is to admit how little one really knows. 
If one has reached that conclusion he will begin 
to investigate and inquire into the whys and 
wherefores of life within and around us, until one 
day he stands fully equipped for the struggle. 

But while mobilizing one’s forces one may still 
be in doubt as to what path to take in life. 

137 


We Three 


You (just as I was) are aware of this doubt* 
A burning desire to help others fills your soul. 
You want to give away the last shred of your 
heart but you are not sure upon which altar 
to sacrifice it. The path leading to our goal is 
never straight. So many things make us tarry 
on the way. There is so much that calls to us 
and makes us linger. Duty, love, sorrow and 
joy. They all steal a little of our time but one 
cannot avoid those things which are part and 
parcel of existence, and we should not worry 
over the time it takes. For we grow and de¬ 
velop while we proceed on our way. 

Some day I shall tell you how it came about 
that I went on the stage, but not to-day because 
of something in your letter — a misunderstanding 
of which you are guilty and which I did not take 
time to correct in my anger the other night. 

You seem to feel that I have thrown the whole 
blame upon Grandmother’s shoulders, that I 
think she is altogether cruel and cold. And you 
defend her with these words: “She wants to do 
good but does not know how.” 

That is it. She belongs to those unfortunate 
beings who lack that fine sensibility called tact, 
which makes it possible to live among people 
without coming into conflict with them. There 
are times when one should talk; there are times 
188 


We Three 


when one should keep silent. There are moments 
when a clasp of the hand reveals a world of mu¬ 
tual understanding and moments when a Hood of 
comforting words only intensifies one’s grief. 

Grandmother possessed that deplorable quality 
of always choosing the wrong words. She pos¬ 
sessed it to such a degree that I almost pitied her. 

Perhaps many others would have passed lightly 
over it, or not have felt the dozens of little needle- 
pricks she daily gave her family; but 1, with every 
nerve strung to its highest pitch, felt every quiver 
of her bad humor, and the sting of her words 
penetrated to my heart and stayed there. 

And then at last I turned the tables on her 
mid it was I who did the hurting. I felt it as 
a still more intense pain which made me wild, 
raging, hysterical. 

Hidden beneath the irritable wording of your 
letter was some of that same nervous sensibility. 
That is why I understand it and easily forgive 

it. 

We are friends now. You can again ask ques¬ 
tions and I can answer them. I shall not be leni¬ 
ent towards myself, shall not hide anything. You 
shall know me completely as 1 am. That is why 
I am no longer in doubt whether I ought to send 
you my first letter. 

Perhaps its tone is not as sweet and tender as 
ISO 


We Three 

you might expect from your mother, but after 
all it was not those feelings you appealed to in 
your letter. My love you can never doubt. 

And you must tell me more about yourself and 
the life you are leading. Your amusing, cour¬ 
ageous letters make me very glad and make me 
think of my own happy youth. 

A thousand greetings and love 
From 

Mother. 


UO 


March 30. 


Dear Mother! 

You do not blame me. You do not accuse 
me. You are only unhappy. And you cannot 
be broken by your grief over me or the death of 
your friend. 

I had hoped that you were like that. I know 
now that I was not mistaken, and I am glad that 
you read my first drastic letter and sent your 
answer, which shows that you are a mother, that 
you possess the love which may be wounded but 
does not reciprocate in kind. 

If you had sent a harsh answer it would have 
broken all bonds between us. I would have re¬ 
alized my guilt, but my defiance and obstinacy 
would have carried the day,—my pride, my rage. 

But I soften beneath your calm, sweet and 
profound understanding of life and humanity. 
Your touching sorrow over my letter makes me 
reproach and condemn myself. I feel that I be¬ 
come a better person through reading your and 
Father’s letters, for you are both bigger and 
deeper and more merciful than I, and I need that 
influence. Harshness in others incites greater 
harshness in me; evil, greater evil. 

m 


We Three 

Sometimes I could cry over myself because 
the pin-pricks I receive bring out my worst quali¬ 
ties. But you and Father awaken in me a desire 
to do good, to sacrifice and to help. 

My character and my individuality are not 
firmly moulded as yet. I sometimes have a feel¬ 
ing of discomfort because I realize that I am 
not the same person to all people. 

It takes a few seconds to discover what the 
person I speak to perceives in me and from that 
moment I am exactly what he thinks I am. 

If I am treated as a lady of the world I am a 
lady of the world. I am a child still when I meet 
Father’s old friends who consider me “the little 
girl.” The clerks, who have a belligerent atti¬ 
tude encounter in me just as fanatic a person as 
they consider me, and the Field-mouse, who to 
begin with thought I was naive and stupid, ac¬ 
tually forced me to ask questions that were naive 
and stupid. 

But when Father has guests at home, and men 
from all walks of life are present, I have ob¬ 
served that particularly those like to talk with 
me as a contemporary whose knowledge and 
cleverness far surpass mine. At once new 
thoughts spring into my mind, I hear myself* 
argue seriously and profoundly, hear myself 
dally with problems hitherto foreign to me, and 
U2 


We Three 

feel that their confidence in me gives me self- 
assurance and wisdom. 

Father cannot deny himself the pleasure of 
telling me afterward that this or that person has 
praised my intelligence. And in spite of that 
I continue to ask silly questions of the Field- 
mouse and to fight my petty battles with the 
clerks. 

But when I write I am wholly myself. With 
a pen in my hand and the leisure to meditate 
I do not permit myself to be swayed by any out¬ 
side influence. 

I often wish that I could hide myself on a 
desert island where I had no one to speak to and 
no one to tempt me to respond to their individual 
perceptions of me. 

Still is it not exactly that resiliency of mine 
that makes it possible for me to write? It makes 
me understand people, however dissimilar they 
are. 

I fall easily into my role, because,—well, I 
suppose mainly to hide my inner self within a 
shell which to others appears to be the kernel. 
While thus hidden I have the opportunity to 
make my observations. 

You know that I am a journalist, that I am 
accustomed to being among people and to being 
considered grown-up, rather early in life. That 

US 


We Three 

is perhaps why you did not think that realities 
would find me so unprepared for the truth about 
Grandfather and Grandmother,—and it was like 
a blow in the face. 

Most children have mothers with whom they 
can talk, which I never had. I could have gained 
my knowledge from the obscene talk of servant- 
girls or from schoolmates who put their heads 
together during recess and curiously whispered 
about certain people’s dissolute lives, taken from 
books or from talk overheard in the servants’ 
quarters. 

I might then have known that you were right 
when you said that Grandfather and Grand¬ 
mother were not very different from other 
people. But I did not want to listen either to the 
servants or my schoolmates because when they 
spoke about such things their faces took on an 
expression I loathed and because they put a sin¬ 
ister meaning into the most innocent remark. 

The only question which interested me was 
how people had children and the school answered 
me before it had become a problem. I always 
left the room at the first indication of whispering 
and after awhile they would warn me with, “We 
are going to tell a naughty story, Vera. You 
had better go.” 

You were not the first to open my eyes. The 

1U 


We Three 


Field-mouse was in the very midst of an attempt. 
I fought against it and clung to my stand to the 
last straw, when your letter came as a bombshell 
and incited my furious answer. 

He is always running after women and he hides 
behind the same words you used in your letter: 
“I am not much different from other men! No 
better nor worse.” 

Why did he make me his confidante? Prob¬ 
ably because he realized that the townspeople 
would talk about him anyway, which they had 
already done by the way. He entertained me 
with tales of his affairs when he met me “by 
chance” on my long walks. He did not do it in 
a vulgar manner but tried to defend himself by 
throwing an interesting halo around these girls 
of the street, who were for him “studies!” 

He told of the lonely man who associated with 
them because of his need for companionship and 
not because of any carnal desire; and he put the 
blame on our shoulders whose social etiquette 
forbids us to speak to unknown persons without 
a proper introduction. 

Bye and bye I wormed his whole history out of 
him. I discovered his craving for conquest, bom 
of his petty vanity, his egotism that made him a 
seducer not content with the girls of the street. 
For he also spoke of “broken hearts” in all the 
U5 


We Three 

towns to which his business had taken him, and 
he showed me costly rings given to him by his 
admirers, whom he called “simps.” 

I told him that he had acted like a cad and 
should not boast of his experiences. I attacked 
him constantly but he kept it up. Did he feel a 
kind of satisfaction in opening my eyes to things 
I knew nothing about? Or was it because there 
was no one else to talk to, as he said? 

At any rate our discussions continued when¬ 
ever we were alone in the office and your letter 
corroborates his assertion, “he was not very dif¬ 
ferent from other people,” my own family in¬ 
cluded. And yet, is there not a difference ? Who 
had the most plausible excuse ? The young lone¬ 
some man or the husband whose wife failed to 
make him happy? The former forgot his respond 
sibility toward his victim, the latter his duty to¬ 
ward his wife. 

Let me tell you how I feel about it. There are 
excuses, many excuses for them both. In time, 
when I learn how much evil there is in this world 
and how many excuses there are I will forget to 
be shocked. I will take the same attitude of 
compassion as I take toward the clerks; but I 
will never, never mistake right for wrong. 

Perhaps love to me means so much more than 
it does to other people: perhaps that is why I 
146 


We Three 


cannot understand that anyone can be contented 
with a girl of the street, or a liaison. I could 
never be contented with so little. I hope because 
I demand a great deal of life, also of love, that 
I will, some day, have a great deal. 

I have never kissed a man. If I told that to 
the Field-mouse he would call it mistaken mid¬ 
dle-class virtue or a lack of sex. It is nothing of 
the sort however. It is simply that I think people 
who give way to a moment’s impulse, a fleeting 
infatuation, dole themselves out in little pieces 
and can never experience a grand passion. 

You see it is not prudishness which dictates my 
action, but sheer egotism. I know I shall meet 
the world’s most wonderful man and I can afford 
to wait. I know I shall experience a grand 
passion and I will keep myself in leash until 
that day arrives. Not for my sake but for his. 
I crave nothing in return,—nothing but love, and 
I shall be the happiest soul in the world. 

But my dreams and my longings I keep within 
myself. I shall not expose them to the Field- 
mouse or any other person. You are the only 
one who shall know, because your letters have 
warmed my heart and have taught me to admire 
your character. I know I can safely trust you 
with my inmost thoughts and know you will un- 
147 


We Three 

derstand me as much as you did when I threw 
stones at you, all unwarranted. 

I am your friend now, you write, not just your 
child. I am, however, a very young and inex¬ 
perienced friend who is eager for your friendship 
and advice. 

You want to hear some of the jolly things go¬ 
ing on here. Well, what would you think of a 
ball in the “Social Club.” It is the best ball I 
have ever been to. Andersen, who is a member, 
took me there. 

First of all, picture to yourself the “Mechanics 
Association” and a tiresome but select concert 
which is the excuse for the ball. Then glance at 
the audience in which there are five women to 
one man. Keep your eyes on the mothers who 
still fuss over their daughters’ dance frocks, and 
look at the gleaming stockings in all the colors of 
the rainbow,—a pair of black ones showing here 
and there. 

After the concert there is a rush for the tables 
in the restaurant. My landlady asks me sympa¬ 
thetically if it is not disconcerting for me and 
Andersen to look out upon such a sea of faces. 
The restaurant contains fifteen tables, all told, 
and the faces I saw were the faces I see every 
day in Broad Street when the town goes home 
to dinner. 

148 


We Three 

The music starts. The artists who manage 
the music—or mismanage it—are my shoemaker, 
a plasterer, and a bricklayer. We two unfortu¬ 
nates do not know that it is not the proper thing 
to dance the first dance, so we make a rush for 
the floor and begin to dance the newest steps, still 
unknown here. The musicians become so flus¬ 
tered they almost forget to play. The onlookers 
become still more scandalized when we sit down 
and talk together. It is not done here. It is a 
severe breach of local etiquette. 

The proper thing to do is as follows: 

Gentlemen to the right, ladies to the left. The 
music starts. The men race across the floor. The 
best-looking girls are quickly taken, and the fel¬ 
lows who don’t get the ones they had their eyes 
on, shake their heads and return to the gentle¬ 
men’s side. When the music starts the women’s 
faces light up. Their voices take on an artificial 
tone. They take little mincing steps, their heads 
roughishly to one side, while humming a tune. 
When the onslaught begins, each tries to catch 
someone’s eye and practically hypnotizes him 
into dancing with her. By and by when the 
lucky ones have been picked out, the rest sink 
into a state of stolid indifference and glance; 
guiltily at their mothers. Like a heavy border 
of beef they sit on the balcony and from there 
149 


We Three 

issues a constant barrage of criticism of those 
who make the greatest hit. 

I need not tell you that the women are much 
nicer looking than the men and that these latter, 
as soon as the dance is over, lead their partners 
back to the vacancy left by them in the ranks. 
In order to find them more easily they drop them 
at precisely the same spot each time. If it should 
happen that a girl, as for instance myself, in her 
innocence, continues the conversation after the 
dance, the border of beef stretches its neck and 
suspects an engagement. 

I danced with a bashful young man who stood 
nervously by afterwards and did not know what 
to do with himself. I thought of course that he 
was shy on conversation and started the ball roll¬ 
ing. Suddenly and without warning he made a 
deep bow and scooted across the floor in wild 
flight, back to the men’s side. 

The border of beef heaved a sigh of relief. 

Well, that is one side of the social life of the 
small town. To-morrow I am going to dine at 
the house of a prominent doctor. That will be 
my first appearance in local “society.” Father 
wrote and asked him to have a look at my lungs. 
There was, of course, nothing the matter with 
them, but it was thoughtful of him. The doctor 
and I had a little talk together and as a sequence 
150 


We Three 

the next day I received an invitation to dinner 
from his better half. 

I am dying to get a glimpse of the home life 
here. 

My best love and a thousand thanks for your 
very long letter. 

You know now that I am not afraid to hear 
more, and believe that, even if we disagree at 
times, our disagreements shall never part us. 

Your Yera. 


151 


London, April 7. 


Dear, dear Vera: 

I remember—I remember. How could I ever 
forget the most beautiful day of my life, the 
10th of April, the day you were born. 

I awoke when somebody called me as from far, 
far away. I wanted to open my eyes but my eye¬ 
lids were as heavy as lead. I wanted to lift my 
head but a heavy hand seemed to press against 
my brow forcing my head back on the pillow. 

Bye and bye I became conscious of whisper¬ 
ing, anxious voices. Again I heard, this time 
clearly, someone calling my name. 

Another effort to open my eyes and I suc¬ 
ceeded. I felt as if all the world’s happiness 
rushed to my heart and threatened to burst it at 
that moment. Tears coursed down my cheeks. I 
did not know why I was crying. I felt very 
strong and dreadfully weak,—sweetly sorrowful 
and violently happy, all at the same time, I 
stretched my arms for a little white bundle they 
offered me and pressed it to my heart. 

It was you, Vera, my beloved child. Father 
was bending over me, and, deeply touched, con- 
152 


W e Three 

tinued to stroke my hair, which felt damp and 
clammy on my brow. 

“Was it hard to go through, little May?” he 
whispered. 

I took his hand and kissed it, pressed it and 
laid it against my cheek. I could not speak but 
my eyes traveled from him to you and from you 
to him expressing all the deep love that was fill¬ 
ing my heart. 

“Thank you, dearest little May,” father 
whispered, and kissed the little silky black head 
that nestled at my bosom,—“and I congratulate 
you.” 

“I congratulate you/* I whispered back. 

“Congratulations,—congratulations!—” said 
the doctor and the nurse, and Aunt Edith who 
was visiting. The servants stood in the door and 
nodded, “Congratulations, Madam.” 

Heaped upon my bed was a perfect deluge of 
roses and Father placed an old ring set with one 
large diamond, upon my finger. It was an heir¬ 
loom which had been in the family for genera¬ 
tions. 

It has never been off my finger from the day 
you were born. I had looked at it often, thinking 
it did not bring one very much good luck. But 
to-night as I look at it for the last time, reflecting 

153 


We Three 

the light in its finely cut facets, it sparkles in a 
quite jolly way to me as if saying: 

“It will come. Your happiness is on the way. 
I shall carry it to you!” 

Now I am sending this old ring to you on your 
birthday, Vera. The promise of future blessed¬ 
ness it brought to me on the day you were bom 
still lingers and glows in its depths. Perhaps 
this promise will be fulfilled when you put it on 
your hand. Perhaps,—perhaps it will bring you 
to me again, as it seems to say to-night. I am 
strangely happy and serene to-day: more than I 
have been for many years. All the gladness 
which has come into my life—my ambitions re¬ 
alized, a kindness shown me—success after long 
struggle, has been saddened by the dreary back¬ 
ground of my life without you and Father. There 
is always need to share joys with some beloved 
or sympathetic person, or the joy is lost, and its 
place is filled with a longing for a real friend in 
whom to confide. 

To-day I am joyous,—really joyous, for your 
letter has lifted a burden from my shoulders. I 
have, however, sometimes been alarmed at the 
danger lurking in your want of a mother to guide 
your thoughts. I see now that your wholesome 
nature and your inborn common sense have 
helped you over these reefs. 

154 


We Three 


Your self-assurance and your self-criticism, 
both unusually well-developed, will guard you 
against too many disappointments and your fair¬ 
ness, inherited from your father, will keep you 
from inflicting unnecessary sorrows upon others. 

Everything you tell me about the town and 
its balls and social activities awakens jolly mem¬ 
ories from the days when I was a small-town girl. 
You may hardly believe it, but I have also 
awaited the boy’s onrush with beating heart, and 
felt a burning shame if left over. It is amusing 
to think of now. One looks back at herself al¬ 
most as a dear little friend for whom she has com¬ 
passion—yet whom she cannot help finding 
slightly ridiculous. 

I don’t like the Field-mouse and thank heaven 
you don’t either. Another day I will come back 
to your letter and try to explain those things 
which are puzzling you. 

But not to-day. Your birthday must not be 
clouded by any dark thoughts from the past. 
It must be clear and beautiful as the day when 
you were born. 

Only loving thoughts and the best of wishes 
for your future shall this letter bring to you from 

Your Mother. 


155 


April 12. 


Dear Mother, 

You remembered it. Oh, if you but knew how 
fearful I was lest you should forget it,—as I 
forgot Father’s birthday. 

Your ring is on my finger. I have looked upon 
it for hours, thinking all the while that just so 
have you sat and dreamed over it—inexpressibly 
happy when you two were together and later on 
through many bitter hours when you were alone. 
Bitter because he who gave you the ring could 
not come to you and guard you and help you 
through the hard hours of struggle and doubt. 

My little mother, perhaps after all the ring 
will bring you the happiness you renounced then. 
I believe it: I seem to know it. I am so wonder¬ 
fully glad. 

Father has been here to visit me. He came on 
my birthday. As I sat in the office, buried among 
letters and packages, trying to discover his hand¬ 
writing in the pile, I heard an automobile ap¬ 
proach, the sound of a horn I knew and the door 
flew open. 


156 


We Three 


It was Father. I laughed, I cried! I disap¬ 
peared into the telephone booth to hide my emo¬ 
tions. I had not expected him and did not know 
how old he had become. 

The white strands of hair at his temples have 
multiplied, the grandfather wrinkles are spread¬ 
ing out. Mother dear, how he must love me, if 
our short separation has aged him so. Or is it 
you he longs for now in his solitude? 

You left him, but I won’t. Not now, not in 
such a way. But must I go back, must I give 
up all my dreams, all my hopes? 

I cannot make a choice. If he demanded that 
I return I know I would stay, but he demands 
nothing. He wishes only that I shall be happy— 
that is why I must help him now. 

We have talked together not as father and 
daughter but as friends. For the first time in 
his life he spoke about his business, divulged all 
his plans, all his dreams of the future. 

All at once his face took on a serious expres¬ 
sion. The smile and the youthfulness in his eyes 
disappeared and his voice became hard and cold. 

“But what do I work for? What is the use? 
Who shares my success with me?” 

“I do, little father,—I do!” 

“You!” I felt as if he looked at me without 
157 


We Three 

seeing. “You are like your mother, little Yera. 
That is the best thing I can say about you, but 
she—she also left me.” 

Suddenly he began to speak about you ,—in a 
hurried, strained, feverish manner. He loves you 
still, I felt it in every word, every sentence. 

“You must never think harshly about your 
mother. Life to her did not mean just duty and 
still more duty. It meant more, something 
higher, nobler, but I did not understand it then.” 

A tear dropped down on the white tablecloth 
and then I could not hold my question in check. 

“Why did you part? Why did you two make 
each other unhappy?” 

Then he remembered where he was and with 
whom he spoke. 

“Little girl, I tire you and I am tired myself. 
Forgive me if I have talked foolishly, but I have 
been so much by myself after you left that I have 
almost forgotten how it is to be with others. 
Promise me not to think too much about what I 
told you. I wouldn’t like to have you think that 
Mother and I hated each other, or that we parted 
with harsh words. I do not believe we quarrelled 
once during our marriage. But there are some¬ 
times things beyond our control, outside condi¬ 
tions, apparently indifferent, which may influ¬ 
ence our lifes and reshape them. I see now that 
158 


We Three 


the fault was mine. I should never have let it 
happen, but at that time I thought it was your 
mother who shirked her duty.” 

“Do not ask me again. Some time I will tell 
you everything but not to-night, not here.” 

His voice trembled when he took my head be¬ 
tween his hands and kissed my brow. 

“Good-night, little girl. Sleep well.” That 
was the way he used to say good-night to you, 
wasn’t it? 

Oh, why did I not dare that evening to sit 
beside him on the sofa and whisper into his ear: 

“Little Father, I know everything. I know 
my mother. We two are friends for life.” 

But I dared not. I hardly dared breathe be¬ 
cause what he told me was said only because of 
his deep longing for you and because he wanted 
to talk to someone about you so as not always to 
be alone with his memories. I really don’t think 
he realized he was talking to me , and if I had in¬ 
terrupted his rapid flow of words he might have 
withdrawn into his shell and I would never have 
heard another word about you. 

That is why I sat silent and quiet and listened 
mournfully to a lonely old man’s remembrances. 
How much he remembers! And such insignifi¬ 
cant details one would think were forgotten long 
ago! The dress you wore, the last time you two 
159 


We Three 


celebrated my birthday together. The expres¬ 
sion of your face when one day you had forgotten 
he had a guest for dinner. The dance of joy you 
did for him in the living-room when he had suc¬ 
cessfully turned a deal, or he was out of sorts. 
How proud he used to be over your social suc¬ 
cesses or the host of admirers which surrounded 
you, and over whose heads you used to nod to 
him lovingly, a nod which said: “You and I,— 
we belong to each other. I love you.” 

He has gone, and I can put your ring back on 
my finger, without fearing that he might recog¬ 
nize it. He has returned to his solitude, while 
we two, in our separate loneliness, sit longing for 
him and each other. 

How complicated life is! It is not only that 
we are living apart. There is so much besides 
that must be conquered before our yearning can 
be appeased. And in the meantime we must 
suffer. But I cannot sit passively by and see you 
two suffer, see you struggle separately through 
life when you ought to be side by side. 

Good heavens! If you only parted because 
Grandmother and Aunt Edith spoiled your mar¬ 
riage then they cannot be an obstacle now since 
we are not now living together any longer. 
Mother, what is making it impossible for you 
160 


We Three 


again to take your proper place? Father loves 
you, I feel that. Why are you two still hiding 
your yearning for each other? 

Your 

Vera. 


161 


London, April 16. 


Beloved child! 

Father has been with you, and talked to you 
about me and in such a way as to make it appear 
that it was not I who was wrong, who was un¬ 
faithful. I cannot understand it. Then there 
are still miracles in the world. 

And what do you write me? Grandmother 
and Aunt Edith are not living with Father any 
longer? But then he has kept his promise to me, 
—in everything, in spite of my failing him. 

Do you really believes he loves me still? Is it 
possible, or do you write it simply to make me 
glad or to try to reconcile us? 

He has aged, so much so in these short months 
that your child-heart bled at the sight of him. 
And you are willing to sacrifice all your future, 
your artist’s dreams. 

No, no, that must not be. I will not hear of 
more sacrifice for my sake. For I know that it 
is for me that you want to give this up. It is my 
guilt you want to take upon your shoulders. 

I left him. I whom he loved and who loved 
him. I was cruel but yon cannot be. 

162 


We Three 


You see now how petty I was. How egotis¬ 
tical. For he had made a promise to me and I 
would not wait. 

Did he not say a word about why I left him? 
Was there no bitterness against me in his words? 
Did he not mention someone else, another man? 
For he must have believed there was another. I 
gave him to understand there was. Or did he 
always suspect the truth—that I only used it as 
a pretext, so that he should not reproach himself 
too bitterly? Has he always known that it was 
he and he only whom I loved,—loved so deeply 
that I could not bear to see our love ruined 
through any petty arguments in our daily life? 
Loved so deeply that I would rather suffer and 
yearn in exile than stand by him and let my dis¬ 
satisfaction, my impatience and my rising ner¬ 
vous irritability throw a shadow across his life? 

I left him, and you must believe me if I now 
swear to you that I went because I could not en¬ 
dure to lose his or your esteem day by day as I 
was losing my own toward myself. 

I wanted to continue to be his love, his joy, his 
sun, as I had been the first years of our married 
life. I would not be the bitter malcontent fretful 
being who always met him with tearful eyes and 
silent reproaches as soon as he arrived home. 

He promised me that everything would soon 
163 


We Three 

be all right again. Time and again he begged 
me: 

‘‘Please be patient, May. I promise you as 
soon as I can afford to give Mother everything 
that I feel I owe her we shall again live alone 
together* And I will carry you in my arms and 
thank you every hour because you took all this 
upon yourself for my sake. I understand fully 
how difficult the situation is for you. You never 
hear me censure you, and I love you more than 
ever.” 

No, he never reproached me but I blamed my¬ 
self because the knowledge of his love and con¬ 
fidence was not enough to warm my soul and 
make me insensible to all the world’s pettiness. 

I blamed myself because your plump warm 
arms around my neck could not guard me against 
the bitterness in my heart. I felt my own un¬ 
worthiness and I suffered from it. 

And I could not come and say to father: 

“You must choose. Either they or I must 
leave our home.” For I knew beforehand what 
he would do. But I also know that from the day 
I forced him to abandon what he felt was his duty 
I would lower his self-esteem and perhaps change 
his opinion of me. I could not demand such a 
sacrifice, for whichever way he would have chosen 
164 


We Three 

would have brought him into conflict with some¬ 
thing in his own nature. 

I saw no other way out, than to use the knife 
myself, and do it in such a way as to save him 
from self-reproach. 

I wish to make clear what I have already con¬ 
ceded, and that is that Grandmother wasn’t 
really bad. Rather it was pettiness, discontent 
and suspicion which made up her characteristic 
traits. But I think I would have preferred to 
struggle against real cruelty, for then the battle 
would soon have been over. 

Instead it lasted over two years until I felt 
I was on the point of suffocating beneath all the 
mire heaping up about me. 

The conflict started the first evening when 
Grandmother and Aunt Edith came to us. The 
furniture had arrived two weeks in advance and 
Father and I took pleasure in putting the rooms 
in order before they arrived. We felt that 
Grandmother had gone through such a lot of un¬ 
pleasantness in connection with the auction and 
the disintegration of the old home, that now we 
would build her a new home here on what was 
left of the one she had to give up. She had kept 
the living-room furniture, and we tried our best 
to make her room look like her old one. Of 
course it was not so large and roomy as the one 
165 


We Three 

in the old manor house, but we thought we had 
succeeded in making the sunny balcony room 
cozy and attractive, and had filled it with flowers. 

At last they arrived and Grandmother’s first 
words when she stepped over the threshold were 
a criticism. Not a word of thanks, not the least 
appreciation of all the work we had done. 

“Ugh! What a hole!” was her first remark and 
then she began to examine everything. 

“Goodness me, May, don’t you even remember 
there were two pleats on the curtains ? That vase 
is not made for water.” 

And so forth and so on. The pillows were 
not correctly placed. That chair should stand 
at the window. Everything was wrong. She 
criticised in a petulant, harsh tone of voice, al¬ 
though these were ail matters of small impor¬ 
tance, easily adjusted. 

I was sad and thoughtful when we went to bed 
that night, but Father comforted me. 

“Wait until she sees everything by daylight, 
May, then she will be happy.” 

But she was not happy. The very next morn¬ 
ing she extended her fault-finding to my special 
domain. 

The arrangement of the house my manage¬ 
ment of it, the food,—nothing was as it ought to 
be. Her criticism was never open and above- 

166 


W e Three 


board, pointing to an error which really existed, 
but sneaked forward in the guise of an innocent 
question. 

—“Don’t you use—? No really,—Why I 
never saw that before-” 

It was most irritating and afterward when a 
conflict arose she always said, surprised, at my 
loss of temper: 

“Why, I haven’t said a word!” 

We let one of our maids go when Aunt Edith 
and Grandmother came and shared her household 
duties between us. One day we stood ironing 
the linen. There was a yellow curtain at the 
window which gave to the whole room a golden 
light. Probably she did not notice this but saw 
only that the linen was not as snowy-white as 
her own used to be when it was lying in the sun¬ 
shine. She twisted and turned one piece after 
the other and at last she said with feigned ig¬ 
norance and in an astonished voice: 

“Do you color your cloth?” 

She knew very well that no one in the world 
would think of coloring one’s linen and sheets 
yellow. Her only purpose was to make me feel 
I lacked her efficiency as housekeeper. If she had 
said very frankly, “I don’t think your clothes 
look very white,—have you a good laundress?” 
we could have talked it over peacefully. Instead 
167 



We Three 

I became angry and, looking her straight in the 
eyes, I answered,—“No, do you?” 

She turned her head away because she felt I 
had seen through her, and became irritable and 
personal to hide her embarrassment. 

Our happy mornings, our laughter and song, 
withered beneath the little sarcastic sallies they 
inspired daily. She dared not come out in the 
open while Father was at home but answered 
questions as to whether or not we were disturb¬ 
ing her in the morning with a saccharine smile 
and these words: 

“No, I am glad there are some people in this 
world who are carefree.” 

But as soon as he was out of the door her 
poisonous attacks began. 

“It is no wonder we cannot get any work done 
when the morning has been spent in tomfoolery.” 

When Father came home my eyes were red 
and swollen, and I was unbalanced and irritable. 
Yet he never knew half of what I suffered, be¬ 
cause she evaded issues and misrepresented the 
facts in order to appear entirely innocent. It 
was I who was too touchy and could not stand 
any criticism. 

I could tell you of endless and apparently in¬ 
nocent occurrences. I am often astounded to find 
how clearly every one is burned into my con- 

168 


We Three 

sciousness, but it only shows how much they got 
on my nerves. 

One more little episode I must tell you. It 
happened one beautiful day in June just before 
our wedding anniversary and while Father was 
away traveling. 

I took a long walk with you. Long, in com¬ 
parison with your little legs. We had taken your 
ball with us and rolled it ahead of us, catching it 
again in a little race which you were always per¬ 
mitted to win. In this way you never tired of 
the walk. We came into a wood and I sat down 
on a bench while you continued to play. 

I sat there, happy about you, the sunshine and 
everything. I thought of Father and all my 
troubles were forgotten for the moment. I com¬ 
posed a pretty little letter to him in my mind. I 
wanted to tell him how much I loved him and 
how happy I was at that moment. I wanted 
to cheer him and to promise him that I would be 
sensible—that I would endure. I wanted to tell 
him that never would the hope of a glorious fu¬ 
ture for us three die in my heart. 

When I came home I let the maid take you and 
sat down at my desk at once so as to write while 
my high spirits lasted. 

Then Grandmother opened the door. 

169 


We Three 

“The silver, May,—wasn’t that to be polished 
to-day?” 

“Yes, yes. I’ll be there right away.” 

“Perhaps I am supposed to do it all by my¬ 
self?” 

“I tell you I’ll be with you in a minute.” 

“When I am all finished, I suppose.” 

I stayed where I was but I heard her open all 
the drawers in the dining-room and take out the 
silver—with an unnecessary amount of noise. 

I tried to close my eyes in order to write what 
I had planned to write but I felt as if my hear¬ 
ing suddenly had become maddeningly acute. 
Through the closed door came the sound of the 
jingling of the silver, all the little harsh clicks 
when it was thrown on the table. Even her 
mumbling reached me and the deep, heavy sighs 
that accompanied her work. 

Suddenly I threw the pen impatiently aside, 
went in to her and started to work. 

In our fury we cleaned the silver in no time 
at all, but the letter I wrote to your father later 
on was a result of the rage I felt and not the 
declaration of love I had dreamed of sending 
him. Again a hole was shot through the wall 
soon destined to fall. 

But the worst was still to come when a young 
Englishman, Mr. Briand, one of Fathers distant 
170 


We Three 


relations, came to Denmark and was introduced 
into our home. He spoke Danish with great dif¬ 
ficulty and it was natural that he and I were 
tempted now and then to speak our native 
tongue. 

That was enough to arouse Grandmother’s 
suspicion, kept sensitive through her own un¬ 
happy experience. She thought we gossiped 
about her and she believed we had a secret to¬ 
gether. One day an infinitesimal occurrence 
gave new impetus to her suspicions. It was 
simply that something flew into my eye. It hurt 
me and Mr. Briand offered to remove it. 

We were alone in the room standing at the bay 
window to get more light. In order to support 
my head Mr. Briand put his hand back of it. As 
we stood thus in this apparently very intimate 
situation Grandmother passed by the window to 
go into the garden. She glanced in. I saw 
she was startled and I knew at once what she 
thought. I could almost read it in her back when 
she turned and went away from the house. 

The blood surged to my head. I was seized 
with a desire to run out to her, force her to turn 
around and listen to my explanation. But I 
could not do it without strengthening her sus¬ 
picion. 

There was never a word breathed about this 
171 


We Three 

incident afterwards. Silently she bore her sus¬ 
picion and silently I bore it,—always, always. I 
read it in her sarcastic smirk when she spoke 
about “this Englishman” and I read it in the 
compassionate voice with which she mentioned 
Father as “my poor boy” from then on. She 
never again came into the room when Mr. Briand 
was there and she took her meals in her own room 
when he came to dinner. 

I read in Edith’s face that Grandmother had 
told her what she had seen for she also became 
cool and reserved in her attitude toward Mr. 
Briand—and me. Her silence, and Grand¬ 
mother’s absence, created a strained atmosphere 
at our little dinner-parties. The forced liveliness 
with which I attempted to raise our spirits only 
made bad worse. I was too proud to justify my¬ 
self in Father’s eyes and explain the situation to 
him although I felt that gradually he also began 
to realize that something must have happened. 

From then on the home became unendurable 
to me. I had no wish to remain any longer. All 
I wanted was to get away from it all. 

They thought I had betrayed your father and 
that I had had a liaison with Mr. Briand. Very 
well. They could think what they pleased. I 
would not defend myself against a baseless accu¬ 
sation so horrid, so impossible, which had never 
172 


We Three 


even entered my mind. Gradually, without quite 
being aware of what I did, I conceived the idea 
in my despair, to use Mr. Briand as a pretext to 
get away, and coolly laid my plans. 

I suppose you think that all I have told you 
are things of little consequence, that all these 
trivial matters ought not to have destroyed the 
lives of three people. But great conflicts and 
situations often come of just such trifles. One 
solitary little mistake may create a terrible ex¬ 
plosion. That happened to me. 

This is a long letter: a long confession if you 
insist. Your letter touched all old chords until 
they vibrated. I am again in the throes of the 
witches’ dance which carried me away in the past. 
But through the barbarous music breaks a soft 
and calm strain,—“Father loves me,” and I love 
him. I wonder if this beautiful motif would have 
continued to be played through the years if I had 
stuck to my post and had endured and suffered 
with humility until I had become as low and 
wretched as they wanted to make me. 

Write me a few loving words soon again if 
you can, for I am racked with doubt. 

Was I utterly in the wrong? Was I? 

Mother. 


173 


April 28 th. 


Dear Mother— 

Write—write! I am waiting for more in a 
state of feverish excitement. For a whole week 
I have worked, locked in my room from the mo¬ 
ment I left the office. Papers filled with plans 
and outlines and dialogues are spread over my 
table and in the bottom of a drawer I hide the 
first act of my play. 

Don’t think it is finished, don’t think it is good. 
It is written in fever heat, in wild excitement. 
Written in a desire to act, to do something, in 
order to bring you two together again. 

I have written with the fever glowing in my 
cheeks and in such an intense nervous state that 
I jumped from my chair and paced the floor to 
quiet down. 

It is the play about Father and you. First 
Act: the pinpricks, the little innocent pin-pricks 
which to all outward appearance scarcely break 
the skin, though really they sink deep into the 
soul. 

I have dared it. I have tried it. But have I 
succeeded? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It will have 
174 


We Three 


to rest now for a while until I am calm again * 
until I can contemplate it coolly with the sober 
eyes of an audience. 

Mother! Tell me honestly if it is insane? 
Technique and routine are not within my power. 
What do I know about the construction of a 
play? But I know Grandmother, I know 
Father,—and I know you ,—or do I not know 
you yet? 

Tell me everything. First and foremost tell 
me about yourself. I have never talked with 
you: don’t know how you speak, but while I am 
writing it seems to me that in just such and such 
a manner you must speak and act. 

I resemble you, father says. Perhaps that is 
why I put something of myself into the character 
of you, and I hope I handle it correctly. 

It was your last letter that inspired me to try. 
I read it over. I closed my eyes, and saw the 
whole thing before me. Yes, yes! I understand. 
That is how things must have happened, for I 
know Grandmother! And that is exactly how 
she would have stepped into the room, stopping 
here and there to look around; and at last she 
would have said: 

“Ugh, such a hole!” 

Father would have tried to make a joke of it 
to conceal the meaning of her words, to soften 
175 


We Three 

them. But the thrust had gone home, because 
you knew that you had honestly striven to kill 
your doubt and your uneasiness. 

And you kept silent, swallowed your answer 
and smiled to Father. You two had talked over 
her coming and you had agreed solemnly to do 
your best; your very best to soften her through 
your kindness. 

But gradually both of you became weary. 
Your restrained answers began to come slower 
and less gaily. You are on the point of break¬ 
ing ; they begin to realize your temperament and 
feel that you are about to fly into a passion and 
only curb it out of regard for Father. At last 
Grandmother retires with a petulant “good 
night” and the remark that she can “of course, 
get along without a pitcher of warm water, since 
we have to economize on servants.” You sink 
exhausted down on the sofa while Father, softly 
whispering, cheers you up, and you promise to 
endure and not to give up. 

But Mr. Briand! Did he love you? Were 
you aware of it, and did you make use of it? I 
lack knowledge from which to create his char¬ 
acter. But first and foremost you must tell me 
about the breach between Father and you; about 
the last day you were together, and the words 
you had between you before you left. 

176 


We Three 


I know I have no right to put these questions 
to you. Why should you reveal yourself com¬ 
pletely to me? 

But, Mother, I am a visionary, a hopeless 
dreamer, and just now I am dreaming one of 
my stupendous dreams, I dream of a play about 
you and Father, a play showing how both of you 
are imperceptibly carried toward the separation. 
You see the threatening danger confronting you 
but cannot stop the momentum. Slowly, without 
great conflicts or tempestuous scenes, you drift 
apart and the day arrives when you realize it is 
the end; that it was bound to come, though you 
loved each other and still do. 

That is all. 

But my dream is larger yet. I see you play 
the principal part in your English theater and I 
see Father and myself in a box as chance spec¬ 
tators. And then? Well, then I expect the great 
storm which must either part you two completely 
or bring you together again forever. 

Mother dear, do not laugh at me. Do not call 
me a simpleton. I am just your lonesome child 
who suffers as much as you two by this separa¬ 
tion. And I possess this generation’s urge to 
act instead of resigning itself to the task of wait¬ 
ing. 

I feel as if this week of day and night work 

177 


We Three 


has made a different person of me. While I 
struggled with my materials, continually dis¬ 
couraged, I was kept going by the thought of 
victory and the goal that had to be reached. I do 
not yet dare to read what I have written. The 
fever is still in my body and I must wait until 
my mind is normal again. 

Tell me truly and honestly if it is hopeless. 
Tell me if my hope to have it accepted by one 
of London’s greatest theaters is a dream of 
youthful madness. Wouldn’t your word have 
great weight if you should want to play the part ? 

I know very well that if the play is to be pro¬ 
duced it must first go through the hands of an 
excellent translator. He must cut whatever you 
want cut, patch up and correct but not change 
the action,—the truth. 

Oh, Mother dear, you write that I must not 
relinquish my hope of an artistic career for your 
sake and I won’t do that for either your sake or 
father’s. But if this dream of mine should but 
come true I will return home for my own sake 
and give up my hopes of becoming a journalist. 
For then it will mean nothing to me. 

Do not be angry because I did not answer your 
letter sooner. I have drowned myself in this 
play, have lived in one burning ecstasy, closing 
my eyes and ears to everything else about me. 

178 


We Three 


I have done my newspaper work mechanically, 
for my brain throbbed with the dialogue of my 
play. My weekly letter to Father became a 
postal card, and as for you,—I failed you com¬ 
pletely. But I have no pang of conscience this 
time, as I am working for you two: for your 
future happiness. 

I dare not think that perhaps your next letter 
will discourage me,—that your answer, gently 
but firmly, will advise me to give up my idea for 
one or many reasons. The plans for next season 
may be already made; you do not believe that I 
am up to my task; you do not want to play the 
part because you will not experience the same 
suffering once more,—or perhaps you think it 
will be impossible to make Father take a trip 
to London with me to attend a performance in 
which you are playing, now when I know you 
are my mother. 

But I feel I can make him do that. In his 
inmost soul he is yearning to show me the mother 
he loves and adores. So if I ask him he will let 
me persuade him and be happy that I did. 

Mother dear! 

I am awaiting your answer with impatience. 
I shall not let you see my play before it is fin¬ 
ished. Perhaps I was foolish even to mention it. 
But I am most anxious to hear your verdict. 

179 


We Three 

I am longing, longing, longing to receive your 
positive yes or no. 

Don’t be magnanimous,—be truthful. 

Your Vera. 


180 


London, May 2. 


Dear, dear Friend: 

At last your letter came. I have waited for it 
many days. I could not understand your silence 
or rather I thought I understood it too well. My 
letter, my open confession, naturally had made 
you suffer, had disappointed you and made you 
angry. Perhaps a touch of Grandmother’s 
suspicion had entered your mind, perhaps you 
thought as she did, that there was something 
in it about this Englishman. Perhaps you were 
contemptuous of me and your silence was your 
verdict and your answer. 

Then your letter arrived and as if lashed by a 
tempest your words were driven into my heart; 
turned my thoughts upside down: killed all my 
spineless reflections and awakened with a jolt my 
struggling emotions. 

You want to act. You want to enter the arena. 
You want to help and you want to do it by writ¬ 
ing a play. You want to infuse new life into our 
old thoughts, our dreams, our love, and want to 
exhibit it all in the sharp glows of the footlights. 

You want to make us see each other as we 
181 


We Three 

really are; want to show plainly our mistakes and 
our errors and force us to retrace our steps one 
by one down the road that parted us until we 
stand again united. You want us to stand hand 
in hand, torn and wounded from our lonely pil¬ 
grimage, with our young faith, our young love 
reborn in our hearts. 

Dear, you are young and I am old, and I do 
not share your point of view. 

Can one forget in a second? Can the down¬ 
trodden flowers again raise their heads? Can 
the painful wounds that are burned into our flesh 
ever be healed? Will not the scars they have 
made remain as eternal memories of what we 
suffered? 

I do not believe in miracles, but admit they 
may occur. One happened the day you came to 
me of your own volition, and I catch myself 
dreaming my old dream over again. A dream 
from which I have often awakened with a smile 
on my lips but which quickly changed into a wild 
sobbing when I faced the bitter reality. A dream 
of Father standing in my room looking at me 
with affectionate and serious eyes blinded by 
tears. 

“May,” he whispers and draws me to his heart, 
“I have done wrong. We both have. But now 
since we have understood it and have suffered 

182 


We Three 


for it, we will both close our eyes on the past 
and we will try to heal each other’s wounds with 
tenderness and love.” 

But a dream is a dream and life is much more 
complicated than any dream our imaginations 
can create, however beautiful and however bold. 

I am getting lost in a maze of thoughts. I 
wonder if I am justified in killing your faith, 
your hope and your strong will with my pessi¬ 
mism. Have I not destroyed enough for you by 
opening your eyes? You are now facing the 
fulfillment of your artist’s dream. You are 
seized with a new delirium of creativeness. Am I 
justified in tearing apart with a ruthless hand 
the light and. airy filaments of your imagination 
with which you try to entwine our destinies. 

No, you must continue, now you have started. 
Though you might not help Father and me, it 
will perhaps bring you happiness in some other 
way; become the foundation of your future. Be 
assured that I shall help you with all my strength. 
To be able to smooth your path for you would 
be a pleasure which I do not deserve. 

And I can do it. My plans are already made. 
I know the man who, with me, shall translate and 
adapt it. He is a talented young author who has 
studied the Scandinavian languages for a long 
time. It has been his dream to create a role for 
183 


We Three 

me. He has taste, tact and an unfailing flair 
for dramatic construction, and he will be both 
pleased and proud when I ask him to cooperate. 
His name and mine will be enough of a guaranty 
for the manager. Do not doubt that it shall suc¬ 
ceed. 

But now all at once it becomes necessary for 
you to know so much more. 

In order to construct a plot it is not enough 
to know all the surface characteristics of the 
people you want to depict. 

It is not enough to move one’s figures about 
as chessmen facing each other in convenient situ¬ 
ations. One must penetrate their world of 
thought, must get to the bottom of their emo¬ 
tional or spiritual life. One must reveal them 
and explain them so that the audience feels and 
understands that they act as they naturally must 
act following the law of their inner being. So 
many thoughts come and disappear in our brains, 
of times only as quick little sparks. Many of 
them never grow into words or actions, but how¬ 
ever long or short their duration, they do set the 
wheels of the human mechanism in motion and 
help to determine our actions. 

When I was very young I dreamed, like you, 
my immense dreams and thought my immense 
thoughts and they always revolved around the 
184 


We Three 


theatre, the histrionic art, until your father came 
along and took possession of all my dreams and 
thoughts. 

It was of no use that I fought, that I refused 
to sacrifice my art on the altar of love; I thought 
I could pay homage to both the high gods but 
your father told me to choose. I vacillated and 
fought with myself. But the last evening we 
were together, when I was frightened at the 
thought of separation and his sad eyes were 
silently upbraiding me, I yielded. There really 
was no choice to make. I could but follow the 
dictates of my heart and quietly I laid my hand 
in his. 

I thought then that my desire for an artist’s 
career was buried forever, but I was mistaken. 
Time and again it returned and I never wearied 
of building my castles in Spain, thinking of what 
might have been. Then the day arrived when 
happiness flew out of the window and the 
monotonous housework seemed uncongenial and 
dreary to me, when the song and the laughter 
died, leaving only dissatisfaction in their place. 
My old dreams returned; I lived again in a world 
rich with excitement, struggle and toil, rich with 
victories, triumphs and honors. 

The memories of Father’s and my travels 
awoke, telling of the days when we rushed from 
185 


W e Three 

country to country, when things happened and 
we saw and learned and observed. I longed for 
England, for London, for the pleasure of sitting 
in the dining-room of a big hotel, of being served 
by well-trained waiters. I longed to speed over 
the continent in luxurious trains and to speak 
of things above and beyond the bagatelles which 
were Grandmother’s sole conversation. 

I felt as if life were running away from me, 
that I was stuck in a blind alley, that my home 
was a prison and each day a fresh torture. 

Then I rebelled. It was the day after Mr. 
Briand left for England and there was a dread¬ 
ful scene between Grandmother and myself. The 
day was gloomy and gray. Your father, spurred 
on by my impatience, had speculated too heavily. 
His business could not carry the burden. He 
had told me about it in the morning and I under¬ 
stood that the result would mean more waiting 
for me. I thought of Mr. Briand who at this 
very moment was speeding on his way to Eng¬ 
land, which for me had become the promised 
land. I became thoughtful and moody. 

Then suddenly grandmother said: 

“You are not quite happy to-day, little May.” 

“No.” 

“Do you miss Mr. Briand so soon?” 

“Yes.” 


186 


We Three 

“You ought to tell your husband.” 

“I am going to.” 

“Then it is true!” she exclaimed, triumphant. 
“What?” 

“N othing,—nothing.” 

“Please speak straight from the shoulder.” 

“What should I say?” 

“That you think I am a harlot.” 

“It would never occur to me to use such an ex¬ 
pression.” She walked toward the door. I saw 
that she was afraid. 

“But it would occur to you to think it,” I 
cried passionately to her. 

“My thoughts are my own,” she answered with 
her sweetest smile. 

The blood rushed to my head. Everything 
went black before me. My rage overpowered 
me. Face to face with her boundless perfidy my 
self-control gave way. Tortured and desperate, 
I lost all hold of myself and without speaking, 
without realizing what I was doing, I grabbed 
the nearest thing to me, a valuable cut glass 
bowl, and flung it at her. 

“My Lord!” she cried, frightened, and fled out 
of the door before it reached her. 

Water, roses and broken glass lay strewn all 
over the floor and in the center of it all I stood, 
187 


We Three 


broken-hearted and wringing my hands in 
despair. 

Slowly I came to my senses. I loathed myself. 
So that was what had become of me: a hysterical, 
vulgar creature: a foolish woman who creates 
a scandal. A feeling of shame surged through 
my heart. I was overcome with despair. I 
would never see her again, never, never. Every¬ 
thing should be over now. I locked the door, 
threw myself on the sofa, my whole body shaken 
with sobs. . . . Slowly I became quiet and be¬ 
gan to think. 

No, not in such a mood, not in so irresponsible 
a fit of temper would I act. After what had 
happened I could not stay. It had to be said 
now, only not in bitterness, but calmly, coolly 
and firmly, so that they would understand, so 
that Father would understand I was in earnest. 

I rose, cooled and powdered my face, tidied 
my hair, and forced myself to sit quietly down 
at my desk. I would write a letter. 

Then the door opened and Father stood before 
me. 

“May,” he said, very quietly, “I know what 
has happened but not why. Won’t you tell me?” 

“Why don’t you ask your mother?” 

“She simply says there is not the slightest 
reason.” 


188 


We Three 


“Do you believe it?” 

“No—she will have to leave now.” 

“Don’t let her go,” I answered as calmly as 
possible. “I will go.” 

“When she is in the wrong?” 

“She was right!” 

“In what way was she right, May?” He sat 
down next to me and took my hand. I did not 
answer. 

“Just tell me one thing, May, is there another 
—another man you love?” 

I looked away and kept quiet. 

“Is it he who just went away?” 

“Why do you ask?” 

“You need not answer. I feel I have no right 
to keep you back. But the child, Vera, will you 
also take her away from me?” 

“Vera will remain. It is only I who do not 
belong here any longer.” 

“When do you intend to leave?” 

“As soon as possible.” 

“And you think you will be happy?” 

“Yes,” with a sigh of relief. “If I am free, 
I may be happy.” 

“You are free, May. I never meant to domi¬ 
nate your feelings. We won’t speak of this to 
anyone. You are ill and have gone on a trip to 
recover. That subterfuge will make it possible 

189 


We Three 

for you to return. Yes, you will always be ex¬ 
pected, will always find a welcome. Vera and I 
will miss you very much.” 

“Thank you, Aage.” 

Three days later I went to England, and every¬ 
body thought I had followed Mr. Briand. But 
he knew nothing, had no suspicion of the quarrel 
his name had caused. He did not know until 
many months later that I was in London, and 
that I had left my home forever. 

You ask if Mr. Briand loved me. Yes. But 
I did not know, did not offer him or his feelings 
the slightest thought. Not until years afterward 
when he was dead, killed in the war—and I hap¬ 
pened to remember our parting, the subsequent 
meeting in London, and our last farewell before 
he went to the front, did it dawn upon me that 
he also had played a part in the tragedy of my 
life. And that not the least tragic. 

Father took me to the train, arranged every¬ 
thing for me, gave me a bouquet of La France 
roses,—and for the last time held me close in 
his arms and whispered in my ear. 

“Au revoir, May.” 

I will not recount the tale of my parting with 
you, for the hitter agony I suffered I have never 
conquered. 

Fame,—excitement,—struggle,—laurels,—all 
190 


W e Three 


that came to me later in life, but happiness never 
returned to me. I gave that up forever the last 
night I stood at your bedside. 

And now my child, write. For you know your 
mother. I have revealed myself to you as I 
actually am. 

Write. Shape your future and build it up on 
the ruins of my past,—and do not let any thought 
of me or my longing for you hinder your work. 

My best love, 

Your Mother. 


May 14. 


Dear Mother: 

I am young, you are old! You say that as an 
excuse because you are uncertain. But I am not 
so young as you think; not young enough to act 
in blind arrogance. 

I am uncertain myself now—uncertain as I 
was at the bottom of my heart from the begin¬ 
ning, even while I worked in the midst of my 
creative fervor. 

Our plot is too slight I think. A slender, pale 
little thread, which I would like to knit together 
with other threads or dye with the crimson fire 
of youth. But I master my desire and continue 
to work in the same vein in which I started. 

I cannot visualize the character of Mr. Briand. 
I feel there is a break,—a contradiction between 
his words and acts in my presentation, and yet 
the second act ought to be his. Do you know 
the feeling of discouragement because you are 
not master of the task you have set for yourself? 
I have experienced it. I have sat glaring and 
glaring at a couple of written lines while des¬ 
pondency crept upon me. All of a sudden I felt 
192 


We Three 


as if the words scoffed at, and ridiculed me. Then 
I took my pen, crossed out the words and I was 
not at peace until new lines took the place of the 
old ones. 

You speak of my artist’s dreams, which should 
materialize,—of my future, which you will not 
hamper. No, Mother. Do not look at it from 
that angle. For once my dreams of honors and 
fame do not urge me, only the dream of reuniting 
you two. 

The days of miracles are past, you say, and you 
are right. One cannot forget all at once. If I 
knew that your and Father’s hearts were com¬ 
pletely closed to each other throughout all these 
years I would not dare to make the attempt. But 
even in your first letter you whisper softly of the 
love that lives, deep down in your heart, and 
when Father came over here and confided in me*, 
I know he also had a faint hope. 

The years have blotted out all the bad feelings; 
between you, and in their place a thousand sweet 
memories reign. You both stand armed with 
forbearance, ready to grasp the opportunity when 
it comes. But fate needs a little push forward, 
and who should give it if not I who love you both. 

Thank you, Mother, for your last letter in 
which you lift the veil for me entirely. I hope 
I will prove myself worthy of your confidence 
193 


We Three 


and create the role for which you have given 
me the basis. 

Do not mind if my spirit is very low to-day 
when doubt has the upper hand, for to-morrow 
faith will conquer. My life, at present, is just 
one eternal struggle, and the struggle is wasting 
me to a degree I never thought possible. I have 
became pale and suffer from insomnia. In the 
office I work miserably slowly and the editor asks 
me vainly every day if I haven’t a new idea. I 
don’t think about the paper at all from the mo¬ 
ment I leave the office and sometimes I have a 
bad conscience on account of it. 

My play is not written with the joy of creating 
which I expected would be part of the work. 
The desire is still there but in everlasting con¬ 
flict with my material. And only my great 
dream and self-respect force me to go on. 

If I stopped in the middle I would have 
contempt for myself. There would be moments 
when I would reproach myself for not keeping 
on and other moments when I would feel con¬ 
vinced that I had let my one great chance slip 
out of my hands. 

A thousand thanks to you, Mother. I shall 
send you the manuscript soon and then I shall 
await your final verdict. 

A thousand good wishes, 

194 


Your Yera. 


Next evening. 


Dear Mother: 

Evidently I only needed a little adversity in 
order to start work again with renewed vigor. I 
was greatly annoyed to-day, and as a conse¬ 
quence, I am burning with energy. 

I had a quarrel with the staff in the business 
office, which, as I have told you, consists of one 
woman,—the worst old gossip in town. 

She raised a terrible row this morning because 
during her absence I had received money for an 
advertisement. In measuring the space I had 
figured wrong to the extent of one-tenth part 
of an inch (a loss of eight cents to the paper) I 
threw the eight cents at her head but was after¬ 
ward furious with myself for my lack of self- 
control. To be sure she has been tormenting me 
ever since I came here and has criticized every¬ 
thing, from my complexion to my clothes. Still 
I ought not to have lost my temper. 

When the editor came into the office a few 
minutes later I found it hard to regain my com¬ 
posure. I was in a defiant mood also against 
him, though he had done me no harm. All at 
195 


We Three 

once it dawned upon me that that was the way 
you had stood facing Father, outwardly calm 
and cool, but with a semi-conscious urge to wound 
and hurt because you were hurt yourself. 

The instant I realized this I became so occu¬ 
pied in analyzing my feelings that I forgot to 
air them, and calmly sat down at my work. At 
least that is what the editor thought. I was 
merely drawing small figures on a blotter while 
the lines of my play were shaping themselves in 
my head. 

In the afternoon when the editor and I were 
alone in the room I received the notice to leave, 
which had been hanging over my head for a long 
time. He said I had lost interest in my work 
and as a result there was not sufficient reason for 
my staying. Journalistic activities, as far as 
writing was concerned, were of less consequence 
than integrity and a wealth of new ideas. I pos¬ 
sessed the ability but had lost interest and I 
ought not to keep a good man out of a job. My 
position with the paper had a number of times 
been the medium through which bright young 
men had risen to more important and leading 
journalistic posts. 

I thought, but did not say, that for me too it 
had been the beginning of more important posts, 
perhaps of something still more important than 

196 


We Three 


mere journalism. Yet the editor was right in his 
judgment of me and there was no occasion for 
me to promise to turn over a new leaf. 

As far as I am concerned the part I have 
played here is finished. The 15th of June I 
make my exit from this charming little town. 
It is really charming, even if I have made fun of 
it at times. I have become acquainted with the 
home life here and in order to judge correctly 
one must see that. I have talked with several 
women here who, at any rate understand one art 
to perfection; viz., to be excellent housewives and 
hostesses. I have seen the jollity, the good 
nature and the spirit which makes every festivity 
in the home a real occasion. In short I have dis¬ 
covered that it is not in the theatre or at other 
public functions one feels the charm of provincial 
life, but in the home whose walls only a few 
chosen ones can penetrate. 

That is the reason why I should like to stay 
a little longer for there is still a great deal to 
see and learn. 

On the 1st of June I leave the paper; that 
gives me a fortnight to spend on my play be¬ 
fore I leave for Copenhagen where Father ex¬ 
pects me on the 15th. 

He will receive me with open arms, dear old 
Father,—how much I love him all at once! He 
197 


We Three 

will be very proud when I return for I have told 
him that I cannot get along without him. 

But I suppose he will think I have given up 
my career and have had enough of serious work. 
Just like the editors and everyone else believe 
who do not know what you know. 

To-night I have made great progress in my 
play. I have written the last scene in the last 
act and I feel it is a successful effort. 

At last I feel I am able, and now I am de¬ 
termined, to go on, because I must show that I 
am capable, even though the paper cannot use 
me. My artist’s dreams can never be shattered, 
for I can stand disappointments and I possess 
the qualities necessary to persist, even though X 
should fail this time. I am fighting for that 
dream to come true which will make us “we 
three,” and to-day I have found the strength to 
continue my fight. 

I have confidence in my work now, and that 
gives power. 

Your Vera. 


198 


London, May 20. 


Dear Vera: 

I suddenly feel worried that I have done some¬ 
thing wrong in letting you know of things that 
parents as a rule do not tell their children. It 
suddenly occurs to me how much it has taken 
hold of you, how incessantly it occupies your 
mind, and to such a degree that everything else 
seems of no consequence. I have begun to regret. 

You are about to give up a work which, to be¬ 
gin with, gave you a great deal of pleasure. You 
relinquish it to follow an idea born of my con¬ 
fession, and you feel your mission is to bring 
Father and me together. You throw yourself 
into this new task with such abandon that you 
completely forget to consider your own health. 

You are pale, you are sleepless, you work 
feverishly and you already feel that the struggle 
is wasting you away. 

Child, supposing you should fall ill? Suppos¬ 
ing the sickness you wrote about in your first 
letter again attacks you. Supposing you break 
down on the day your work is finished, what 
then? Do you think that we two for whom you 
199 


We Three 

will have sacrificed yourself, could ever be able 
to carry the burden of this new sin against you? 

You must be careful, my beloved little friend. 
You must promise never to work at night. You 
must promise me to take your walks and to re¬ 
member your meals. I know it would be as im¬ 
possible to ask you to stop your work now as it 
would be to ask you to stop a landslide. I realize 
that this work to you means life or death, and I 
shall live in fear and anxiety until the crisis has 
passed. 

However I have the consolation of knowing 
that you are going home to your father. It will 
please him immensely, and as for me, I will be 
more at ease, knowing you are under his wing. 
He will look after you, watch every step you 
take and never cease his vigilance in regard to 
your health. It is a good thing that you have 
decided to go home for he will build up again 
what I, in my thoughtlessness, have torn down. 

What can I do but try to lighten your labor 
by helping you as much as I can? You are at a 
standstill in regard to Mr. Briand, and I grant 
you that it is a difficult point to overcome. 

He was in love with me and any unprejudiced 
observer could not have helped seeing it. Grand¬ 
mother saw it, and Edith saw it, and Father went 
about fearing the truth. 

200 


We Three 


Only I, who was completely occupied with my¬ 
self, the daily quarrels, the fight for liberty, grief 
over my shipwrecked love, the dreams of my new 
future, did not see it. It did not even occur to 
me. Not until after his death did I understand 
what I had meant to him, what he had seen in me 
and what he had hoped and waited for until the 
end. And, grief-stricken, I let my thoughts turn 
back through the years and gather together all 
the beautiful memories of my faithful, unselfish 
friend. 

My new knowledge intensified my sorrow over 
his death. I felt I was a bird of ill omen who 
only existed to bring pain and disappointment 
to all who loved me or linked their lives with 
mine. 

It dawned upon me that it had not been by 
chance only that my eyes so often met his across 
the table. I understood now his tender thought¬ 
fulness which so often had helped me through 
painful situations born of my irritability. I re¬ 
membered the little favors and delicate attentions 
which he bestowed upon me daily. Time and 
again I dwelt upon the memory of the last eve¬ 
ning before his departure from Copenhagen 
when, in so many words, he almost revealed his 
feelings, without my realizing their deep signifi¬ 
cance. 


201 


W e Three 


I remember, now, plainly that he told me that 
night he would not visit us again, because he 
could not meet my husband once more as an 
honest friend. He had done enough harm and 
feared that he could not always hold back what 
was in his heart. He was afraid to commit him¬ 
self and was frightened lest his continuous stay 
would do more harm. 

I thought he meant the situation created by 
Grandmother’s suspicions, though I ought to 
have understood when he continued: 

“If I only knew. If I only were absolutely 
certain!” he stopped nervously, as if deeply 
grieved, then suddenly he burst out—“May, do 
you love your husband—completely,—as you did 
when you first met him?” 

“Yes,” I answered, “that is the sad part of it. 
Otherwise it would be easy enough.” 

“Yes,” he repeated gravely. “Otherwise it 
would be easy enough. But as it is—it is very 
difficult for me,—for all of us!” 

“When you are gone,” I answered, “perhaps 
everything will be all right again. If not I shall 
follow after you.” 

“Follow after me? May, will you come to 
me?” 

“To London,” I answered, “whether or not 
you are there.” 


202 


We Three 


“Yes, of course,” he said very gently. “Good* 
bye, May. I hope you will again be happy here, 
so that you can stay with him,—whom you love.” 

When Father returned he was gone. I was 
depressed over the parting and had tears in my 
eyes when I brought Father Mr. Briand’s fare¬ 
well. And Father misunderstood as we all mis* 
understood each other,—and acted accordingly. 

Three days after Mr. Briand’s departure I also 
left for England. I did not let him know it. My 
future plans had nothing to do with him. The 
dream of a stage career occupied all my thoughts. 
I would show everybody that they had committed 
a crime against me when I was persuaded to give 
up my ambition in order to tie myself hand and 
foot to the dreary tasks of domesticity. 

Work—work—work, something cried within 
me. I would show them what I was—what I 
could do. Father should some day read my name 
in print, and see it glow in an electric sign out¬ 
side the theater. 

My own name, — my maiden name, May 
Sanders, not the name with which he had tried 
to throttle the dreams of my career. 

That should be my revenge, the only one that 
I thought of having. I would be great, mount 
the highest steps of the ladder of fame, so high 
that all human feelings: love, hate, joy and sor- 
203 


We Three 

row, anger, disappointment, bitterness, no longer 
lived within me, or fought within me ready to en¬ 
gulf me. I would be master of my moods, train 
myself in the use of them, dive down into my 
memories and drag them forth, put them on or 
take them off, as I would a dress, so as to vary 
my art. 

How did things happen? 

No—not to-night—I cannot write any longer. 
All that I have told you seems too unreal to me 
now. I have given you more material to work 
with. I have given new momentum to your 
thoughts but I am deeply conscious of all the 
harm I may do. 

Do not strain yourself writing to me if there is 
nothing special you want to know. Can you vis¬ 
ualize Mr. Briand now? What occurred after¬ 
ward is of no interest to your play. I shall not 
tire you by telling it. 

On the 31st of May we close the season and I 
leave London. I shall let you know my address 
later. 

Mother. 


204 


June 1st. 


Dear Mother! 

Don’t worry about me. I know now at last 
what it is to live. You write that my newspaper 
work has become inconsequential and meaning¬ 
less to me, and I read between the lines that you 
fear I shall be too deeply disappointed if my play 
should not come out successfully. Don’t worry. 
I know very well it might be a failure. I include 
that in my calculations, but this defeat is not go¬ 
ing to crush me. Instead it will arouse me to 
renewed efforts, to renewed energy. 

Mother dear, I have discovered that adversity 
cannot cow me, and it is a wonderful feeling. I 
believe it is adversity I have needed hitherto, 
and which has keyed me up as a stimulant. For 
the first time I wrestle with fatigue, nervousness 
and pessimism, which challenge me hourly. But 
I come out the victor. 

To-day—oh wonderful day! 

For the first time in a long while I could lie in 
bed and hear the alarm clock ring without having 
to jump up. I could walk all morning through 
the heather, in the open, in the sunshine, and 
205 


We Three 

with no other errand to the paper afterward 
than to get my last month’s salary. 

It seems to me as if to-day, all at once, Nature 
awakens to the call of spring,—or is it I who 
have been asleep! The spirit of life, its power 
and its joys, sings within me; I want to turn a 
summersault, though I am all out of breath from 
juggling with a few pillows. “Just Half an 
Hour’s Snooze” has become white from touching 
the ceiling, and the rest of the pillows are also 
rather a little worse for wear. I danced the tango 
with a plush chair and afterwards I sat in the 
churchyard and played the flute, almost drown¬ 
ing out the church bells. 

But to write! Impossible, dear! To-day there 
is only one thing that interests me,—the joy of 
being alive. When I feel like that it simply 
overwhelms any other feelings I may have. 

Besides, I worked like a slave after receiving 
your letter. My interpretation of Mr. Briand 
was quite correct after all, though I had to re¬ 
write your parting scene. The play is finished 
now. All it needs is a little filing off of its raw 
edges and to be typewritten. Then I will send 
it to you. (Don’t forget to send me the ad¬ 
dress.) 

I do hope I get through my raving to-day so 
that I shall be able to work to-morrow. But your 

206 


We Three 


admonition in regard to my health is wasted on 
me. When I work I work. If I had to look at 
the clock every minute and then rush to the 
boarding-house for dinner, I would not know 
how to get into the mood of writing again. 

No, dear Mother, you must not ask that of me. 
I have to give concentration to my work as com¬ 
pletely and intensely as I concentrate to-day on 
my joyous mood. 

I wish I could sing soprano and alto at the 
same time. It sounds funny as I have really tried 
and the result was something like yodeling. 

It is strange to think that I could have been in 
Copenhagen by now if I had taken the early 
train. But I won’t think of that. I knew there 
would be a grand reception upon my arrival and 
an everlasting round of welcome home parties. 
My play would have been forgotten. 

No—I want to enjoy the solitude and I know 
an excellent method. 

Sometimes when I have been homesick I have 
made believe that I was going away. I have 
walked about the streets saying good-bye to the 
town. 

“Oh, dear!” I have thought, “now you are go¬ 
ing back to Charlottenlund. You really have 
had a very nice time here. To-night is the last 

207, . 


We Three 


night. It is very sad and you will surely miss 
this place often.” 

And when I told myself that it was not the last 
evening my spirits rose and I went home and 
wrote a long jolly letter to Father. 

Believe me, he is glad that I am coming home. 
I have written him that my work here is not fin¬ 
ished until the 15th of June. He thinks of course 
that I am talking about the paper. 

If I only could go to the opera to-night and 
afterward meet a few people I liked in the Hotel 
D’Angleterre’s palm-garden for a little dance. 
(The plush chair looks very indignant because I 
am not contented with it.) (I forgot the opera 
is closed for the season.) 

Oh, how exciting. I thought someone was 
flashing an electric light in through the little win¬ 
dow in the door, but it is the moon. It is asking 
me if I care to take a walk. Of course I will. 

A thousand loving thoughts. 

Vera. 


208 


London, June 4th, 


Dear Vera: 

Many, many thanks for your lovely joyous 
letter. I realize I could have saved myself the 
anxiety in regard to your health and spirits. 
What a letter! The writing seems to dance a 
fandango across the paper and every comma 
cries “Hurrah!” It is an elixir of life to a slug¬ 
gish, despondent old heart like mine, which feels 
tempted to follow the wild tempo in a paroxysm 
of joy. 

Your faith and your hope are contagious. 
Everything will come out all right. Vera will 
conquer. Who can resist the spring when it ar¬ 
rives in all its fulness. 

There is something in your joy of freedom 
which touches a responsive chord in my heart. 
My vacation has started. The day before yester¬ 
day the door of the theatre closed behind me for 
the last time this season. To-day I had the maid 
pack my trunks and to-morrow I fling open the 
portals of nature’s great open spaces. 

I have feared this vacation. I had no notion 
of where to spend it. I feared to be alone with 
209 


We Three 


my own thoughts. I feared that my longing for 
you would completely overwhelm me when I no 
longer had the stimulus of my work. 

But at the eleventh hour I received an invita¬ 
tion from Mr. and Mrs. Duncan to come aboard 
their yacht and cruise along the British Isles 
away up to Edinburgh. I am simply delighted. 
Next to you, my beloved little girl, there is no 
one with whom I would rather be. Such jolly, 
wholehearted and charming people one rarely 
meets. Their affection for each other in spite of 
nine years of married life is as young and alive 
as in the very first days of their honeymoon. 

One cannot but feel happy in their company. 
He shows his affection for her in a thousand little 
attentions which seem like caresses; and she, like 
a good comrade, is always at his side, sharing the 
strenuous life of his many outdoor sports. I am 
glad they are my friends. Their infectious high 
spirits in addition to the fresh sea air, the warm 
summer wind and the lovely sunshine will dispel 
all my gloomy thoughts. After the receipt of 
your letter I can again fully enjoy life. 

I leave to-morrow. I thought I would send you 
a few lines to tell you what I have done for you. 
I have spoken to the producers, who are willing 
to conform to my wish and produce a piece writ¬ 
ten around me. Of course they could not give 
210 


W e Three 


me any binding promises before they had read 
the play. It must be in their hands by August 
1st at the latest if it is to be produced next season. 

Last night Mr. Williams called on me. Mr. 
Williams is the young author I have spoken to 
you about. I told him as much as it was possible 
for me to tell him about the play. For instance, 
that the principal part was written for me by my 
own daughter. But of course I did not tell him 
that it was written around my own life. 

He was enthusiastic about co-operating. I 
showed him your picture and he looked at it a 
long time. At last he gave it back to me and 
said very frankly: 

“She has your eyes, Mrs. Sanders. She is 
surely all right.” 

It would have been the best thing if you could 
have worked together on the translation, but that 
of course is out of the question. You will have 
to stay with your father now, and even though 
Mr. Williams wouldn’t be afraid to cross the, 
North Sea, yet you could not work together with¬ 
out arousing Father’s curiosity. You will there¬ 
fore have to wait until you come to London, some 
day. He sends you his best wishes and will keep 
himself in readiness to start right in when he gets 
the manuscript. 

“Until you come to London some day—” The 
211 


We Three 

thought of this makes me almost frantic with joy. 
Your letter and Mr. Williams’s enthusiasm have 
convinced me that it will happen. 

Send your manuscript care of General De¬ 
livery, Edinburgh. I will be there about the 
twentieth of June. 

Auf Wiedersehen. 

Mother. 


212 


June 14th. 


Dear Mother! 

At last I am finished, and awaiting the sen¬ 
tence. I wish you hadn’t arranged a co-opera¬ 
tion in advance, in case the play can’t be used. 

I have worked so hard on it lately that at 
present I am unable to judge at all. I know 
every line and word and I almost felt nauseated 
when I read it through. The feeling that comes 
over me now is not pride over my work but a 
sense of relief. I can once more live as a sensible 
being,—interest myself in trivial matters, waste 
my time if I please, lounge and loll around, cele¬ 
brate and have a general good time,—and sleep 
until noon. 

And yet I shall feel as if a dark cloud were 
hanging over me until I hear from you. I am 
not afraid of a refusal, but the uncertainty makes 
me nervous. It arouses my imagination, and I 
think of the hundred different ways you may 
answer me. 

Mother dear! Now you are beginning to 
hope and that makes me still more nervous, for 
supposing I should disappoint you. My letter 

213 


We Three 

and the play will await you at Edinburgh. I 
see you before me hale and hearty, lying in your 
deck chair, reading about your own past. Per¬ 
haps you will smile condescendingly: oh dear,— 
the little goose—she has got it all wrong. Or 
will you find in my play a woman who resembles 
you a little though perhaps not a complete pic¬ 
ture of yourself. 

Mother dear! I am so anxious to know! Re¬ 
member me to Mr. Williams. I am sorry I can¬ 
not meet him before that evening, but I don’t see 
how it can be otherwise,—and that evening you 
will be the whole theatre for me. 

How I long to stand face to face with you. 
Sometimes I am almost frightened for I antici¬ 
pate so much. You are almost superhuman in my 
dreams and the reality may fade beside it. 

To-night I go back to Copenhagen. This time 
I have, fortunately, a sleeping compartment, and 
to-morrow morning I shall see dear Father’s face 
smiling to me from the platform. (I hope 
Grandmother and Aunt Edith will be unable to 
come.) 

But all the while I shall think of you, and my 
play, lying over there in Edinburgh, waiting for 
a yacht to sail into the harbor, and the world’s 
most wonderful woman shall go ashore to fetch 
it and decide its destiny. 

2U 


We Three 

It sounds like a fairy-tale—will it be a re¬ 
ality? 

Don’t wait too long before you write. 

Your Vera. 


215 


June 15. 

Aboard the Maud . 

Darling little girl: 

I am sitting here in a beautifully furnished 
cabin writing to you. Mr. and Mrs. Duncan are 
enjoying their siesta under the sunsail on the 
deck, and I take this opportunity to be with you 
for an hour. It is difficult to find a little spare 
time for one’s self when there are so many people 
together in a restricted space, but at last I have 
succeeded. 

To-day you are going home, aren’t you? You 
finally take leave of the small town which yoi* 
have grown to like. For the last time you will 
nod to the faces in the windows when you walk 
through Broad Street to the station. 

I am thinking of your work. Is it finished? 
Perhaps it is already on the way to Edinburgh, 
or did you not finish it in time? 

My anxiety is almost unbearable. I am afraid 
my good friends will think I am not very pleased 
to be aboard the boat. I wonder how many times 
I have asked Mr. Duncan if he thought we could 
reach Edinburgh before the 20th? He laughs at 
216 


We Three 

me and is devilish enough to insinuate that I have 
a rendezvous there. At present we are sailing 
for a good southern breeze, or whatever they call 
it,—they both almost choke with laughter when 
I try to use the sailors’ slang! Mr. Duncan con¬ 
soles me by saying that the boat has a motor we 
can use if the wind dies down; “he” will not have 
to wait in vain! 

When I laughingly protest my innocence he 
declares that I am not so good an actress as he 
thought. 

If they knew what a serious crisis I am going 
through they could not jest with me. But I can’t 
talk about it to anyone before I have attained' 
my object, my desire. 

My object; my desire. What is it? Is it not 
too far off for me to reach, even in my thoughts? 
Can he find happiness at last who always seeks 
it? Is my happiness found at Father’s side? I 
can not tell now. I will not know before I have 
read my sentence in his eyes. 

When I went out into the world I was very 
sure that I journeyed toward happiness. I had 
painted this trip to London with a fairy-tale’s 
weird coloring. How different it looked when I 
stood at Blackfriars Station, all alone in a crowd 
of people so dense I nearly lost my breath. Out¬ 
side lay the city, foggy and slushy, hopelessly 
217 


We Three 

grey and dreary. Not a soul took any notice of 
me; no one was there to meet me. I was so accus¬ 
tomed to being taken care of by Father when we 
traveled that I knew nothing of the many diffi¬ 
culties, and looked about for someone to help 
me. 

Bristol! I used to stop there with father. I 
would take a taxi to the hotel and let the Portier 
of the hotel do the rest. I should rather have 
gone to any other place, but in my helplessness 
I did not know what else to do. 

If anyone had noticed me they would not have 
recognized in the little, disheartened human be¬ 
ing the self-possessed Mary Sanders of to-day 
who, in quite a different way, excites curiosity 
and attention. I sat at a table in the most hidden 
corner of the dining-room on the verge of crying, 
mad with longing, frightened by my solitude and 
tortured by memories. 

I had only a little amount of money in cash, 
but I had a small inheritance from my father. 
He had an investment in English securities and 
could not be persuaded to put it into his business. 
It was my plan to sell these in the course of time. 
In a day or two I went into a small boarding¬ 
house and began to look for a lawyer who could 
advise me, but did not know where I could find 
one. 

218 


We Three 


One day when I walked about with a perturbed 
air, unable to make up my mind in the long street 
where all English solicitors seemed to have 
crowded together, I suddenly stood face to face 
with Mr. Briand! 

I have never before or since read so much in 
a human face as in that moment of meeting. Sur¬ 
prise, sorrow, distress and tenderness, fought for 
supremacy and his voice was almost inaudible 
when he at last pulled himself together suffi¬ 
ciently to talk. 

“You here, May! When did you arrive? I 
am afraid something has happened. Is your hus¬ 
band,— ?” 

“I am here alone,” I answered, with tears in 
my eyes. 

“How could you!” he said quietly. 

“I could not do otherwise.” 

“Where are you going? What are you doing 
in this street?” 

I explained. 

I need not tell you that he took me under his 
protection at once, that he helped me in every 
possible way. 

He introduced me to all sorts of people who 
could be of value to me: people of the press and 
of the stage. When, later on, I had reached the 
first step of my career and had made my first 
219 


We Three 


appearance in a small literary theatre, no one was 
happier than he. 

It would be too long a story now to tell you 
of all the trials and tribulations that fell to my 
lot during my first appearance on the stage. He 
undoubtedly smoothed the way for me many 
times. There is only one thing I want you to 
know and that is that he never, never revealed 
his true feelings to me. He was my good friend 
and comrade. I felt safe in his company, and 
was. 

“May,” said he on the last evening before leav¬ 
ing for the front, “If I did not know that your 
career was safe; if I did not know that your 
standing is so high, that your star will rise higher 
and higher, I would be in the depths of despair 
over my leaving. 

“If I ever return you shall find the same friend 
in me as you have always found. If I fall, will 
you think of me, now and then, when you are 
contented and happy?” 

Our parting was beautiful, without tears or 
protestations. We smiled at each other to the 
last. I will remember as long as I live the cheer¬ 
ful smile he gave me when he waved to me from 
the automobile which was to take him to his regi¬ 
ment. 

I cried when he had gone. For the second time 

220 


We Three 


I experienced the sorrow of parting. For the 
second time I felt the pangs of loneliness, and 
when I heard of his death I felt my isolation 
so poignantly that not even my work interested 
me any longer. 

The letter from you was the first ray of sun¬ 
light through the darkness. A new hope has 
come to life. I have a child who longs for me, 
who needs me, and who works for my happiness* 
And there is one more,—one more. 

I finish this letter before I arrive in Edinburgh 
and before I have been to the post-office. If your 
play is there waiting for me I will wire you. 

I hear Mrs. Duncan’s step on the deck. I can¬ 
not be alone any longer, so farewell for this time. 

Mother. 


221 


Charlottenlund, June 5, evening. 
Dear Mother! 

Well! There is something wrong with me. I 
have feared it but why write about it before one 
is certain? 

This morning on my arrival I knew there was 
something the matter. 

I read it in the three frightened faces and I 
heard it in the inflection of Grandmother’s voice: 

“My heavens, child, how you look!” 

I am ill again, I must go away! 

Please don’t blame yourself, as Father did. I 
suffer by seeing him suffer and by hearing his 
endless: “Child, I can’t forgive myself.” 

Immediately after lunch we went to see a spe¬ 
cialist. There was a little the matter with my 
left lung. 

“You must not take life so strenuously. You 
let your joys and your sorrows touch you too 
deeply. Besides, I believe you have worked too 
hard. Try to be a little more calm. Where do 
you want to go?” 

I looked at Father, and sad-eyed, he returned 
my look. He can’t let others run his business 


We Three 


again while he travels with me. Again we must 
part and just now when we had so looked for¬ 
ward to being together. 

I must go to some mountain-place and Den¬ 
mark has no mountains. The doctor proposed 
Davos but I prefer Engelberg. I can’t bear to 
live among sick people. It will spoil my temper 
and my illness will frighten me. Besides I know 
the manager of the hotel in Titlis and if Father 
writes to his wife she is certain to take care of me. 
Heavens, I am, after all, grown-up now and a 
journalist, so I ought to be able to take care of 
myself. 

Well, you can understand that the dinner 
party was not very lively. I tried to be in high 
spirits but the others did not think it was real 
and then of course it became forced. 

Poor Father! He is sitting in his library writ¬ 
ing to Switzerland, while I am sent to bed with 
half a pint of thick cream and a good book. But 
I will put on my kimono and sneak down to him 
for a minute. We need to have a good talk 
alone. 


11 o’clock—night. 

It got to be very late after all. When we 
started talking we could, of course, not stop 
again. 


223 


We Three 


Father was not writing at all. He sat by the 
fireplace in the hall staring into the cold grey 
ashes. I discovered to my consternation that 
when he is all by himself, or thinks he is, new 
wrinkles show in his face and he looks much 
older. 

“Coo—coo, coo—coo.” I said quietly. 

But when he looked up he did not smile at all. 
He looked at me as if he saw a ghost and when 
I asked if he was angry because I had come 
down, he passed his hand across his eyes and mur¬ 
mured: “I thought it was—someone else.” 

“You are almost grown-up,—a young lady, 
now,” he said rising while I sat down near the 
fireplace. He scolded me on account of my bare 
legs and wrapped my feet in a blanket. 

Oh! It is such a marvelous thing to have a gal¬ 
lant father! When we go to a cafe together the 
waiters sometimes address me as “Madame.” It 
amuses father because he knows I like it. 

We sat for a long time silent, but both of us 
were thinking of the same thing,—You. 

“Do you know of whom you reminded me when 
you came down the stairs?” he asked at last. 

I nodded for an answer. 

“Do you know?” 

“Yes. You thought of my mother. You al¬ 
ways do when you are alone.” 

224 


W e Three 

He looked astonished at me and I continued 
feverishly. 

“I, too, am always thinking of her. All the 
beautiful things you have told me about her have 
made me miss her still more. I can’t help think¬ 
ing that she also longs for us.” 

“No, little Vera, she does not.” 

“Has she said that to you?” 

“Not with words. I once had a friend. He is 
dead now. I thought they loved each other but 
from his death bed he sent me a letter about 
her .” 

“ ‘She did not love me,’ he wrote, ‘did not un¬ 
derstand my love. Now when I am dying I want 
to say to you,—you happy man!’ ” 

“But I don’t understand. He wrote— ‘happy 
man?’ ” 

“Yes, because he believed—but he was wrong 
—a woman who loves her husband would not 
lead him to believe that—she loved another.” 

“But if she does it for his sake?” 

He smiled bitterly. 

“No, little Vera. A woman who loves knows 
there is nothing so cruel and crushing as to have 
one’s love slighted.” 

“Yes, but don’t you understand-” I 

stopped abruptly and blushed to the roots of my 
hair. I dared not speak. Not now. Not here. 

225 



We Three 


Father looked eagerly at me. 

“Understand what?” 

“Nothing.” 

He drew a deep sigh: “I would like to under¬ 
stand!” 

He spoke about Switzerland, about me, about 
the paper and his own business. But incessantly 
our thoughts revolved around the same thing— 
you. At last I managed to say: 

“I would like to meet my mother.” 

“But your mother doesn’t know you.” 

“That is just why. Oh, I wish I could sit in 
the theatre some evening when she plays. Sit 
there unknown among the multitude and think: 
that is my mother. All you people around me 
have not the same right to hear as I have. For 
she is my mother. 

“We two could sit there together, hidden in a 
box. Afterwards we would not talk about it at 
all, only think about her and the fact that she had 
been so close to us.” 

“No, Vera. I do not dare to do it. You can¬ 
not stand so much excitement. You must not 
think about it. Be sensible, won’t you!” 

“Don’t you understand that it is much more of 
a strain on me to nurse such a longing? And 
one day I will go there anyway,—alone—for I 
cannot help myself.” 


226 


We Three 


“But my child!” 

He saw I was crying and in an instant he was 
at my side. He put me on his lap as he used to 
do when I was a little girl, and he cheered me in 
the same old way. 

“My little baby-girl, don’t cry. You must not 
feel so badly. I will come and take you away 
from Switzerland when you are well, and then 
we will go to London together. Poor little girl, 
you are so lonesome and I never knew it. And I 
have always thought you were in such good 
spirits. But now you must smile at me again. 
My own little courageous girl!” 

He took me upstairs and tucked in the blankets 
around me. But he was hardly out of the room 
before I jumped up and went to my desk. 

You must know all about it,—to-night. Per¬ 
haps these lines will reach you before you judge 
my play,—then you will not be too severe. 

I entreat you, not for my own sake, but for the 
happiness of you two, not to reject it. If my 
work is too impossible put Mr. Williams to work 
on a new one. 

Darling mother! In about a week’s time I 
leave for Switzerland, to regain my health. But 
the mountains cannot cure me. Only you two 
can. Will you? That is what I am yearning to 
hear. Your own little girl, Vera. 

227 


Telegram . 


Edinburgh, June 19. 

Vera Dahl, 

General Delivery, 

Charlottenlund. 

You have won. Manuscript sent to Mr. 
Williams. Letter follows. 


Bristol Hotel, Edinburgh. 

June 20. 

Darling, darling child: 

You have won—I have lost. My brain cannot 
hold any other thought at this moment. 

I had a horrible dream last night, and spurred 
on by a presentiment of disaster I went again to 
the post-office. Your letter was there. I hurried 
back to the hotel in order to read it undisturbed. 
I dared not tear the envelope before I had locked 
the door. I trembled with fear from the moment 
I held it in my hand. 

You are so calm and I am going to force my¬ 
self to be the same. But I was chilled from head 
to foot from the very first moment. 

228 


We Three 


You are ill and must go away from Father out 
into the world alone to regain your health. And 
here I am, doomed to inaction. Cannot, dare 
not, rush to your side. I am tempted to burn all 
my bridges behind me and come to you. I want 
to be with you. I have a right to be. No power 
on earth can keep me away. 

I am wrong. There is a power, stronger than 
my wild yearning. My mad fear. It is your 
trembling little wish not to give up our plan, 
the plan you have made for Father’s and my hap¬ 
piness. I am raging against myself. Am I for¬ 
ever the same hopeless egotist, who thinks of her¬ 
self and her feelings only, while you,—you. 

No—my child. Calm yourself. While I write, 
it slowly dawns upon me that I am doing exactly 
the wrong thing. You must not be daunted by 
my fear. I believe sincerely everything will be 
all right again, and “we three” will meet again. 
I know it —now I know it. What you need is 
not letters which frighten you but ease and peace 
and pleasure. 

And I can give you one pleasure,—the one 
which you would rather have than anything else. 

Your effort is successful: past all my expecta¬ 
tions. You have already received my telegram 
so you know it is not just empty cheer or corn- 
222 


We Three 

passion for your illness that prompts me to say 
this. 

I read your play yesterday immediately upon 
receiving it. Perhaps when all is said and done 
it is that more than your letter that has aroused 
my emotions. 

I was so deeply touched after reading your 
play that I was unable to speak to anyone; so 
I stayed in my rooms at the hotel. I just had to 1 
be alone. I did not want to be seen in the condi¬ 
tion in which I was, crying my heart out, 
trembling with excitement. 

I can play that role. I can make a master¬ 
piece of it, but only if you get well. Only if you 
are in the theatre that night with Father so that 
I feel I am playing to you two,—that it is to your 
hearts I am speaking. 

That is why you must be well. Concentrate 
upon that. 

I thank you with all my heart for the beauty 
you have managed to inject into the scenes be¬ 
tween Father and me. I feel your lovely, touch¬ 
ing, filial love behind every word. Every char¬ 
acter is excellently drawn, and in the dialogue 
seems to lie your particular strength. But I sup¬ 
pose no author has his material better in hand 
than you. No one can have lived himself better 
into it. 


230 


We Three 

Only Mr. Briand seems to lack something. 
He has not your sympathy as much as he de¬ 
serves, but in this matter Mr. Williams can sup¬ 
plement you very well. It will also be an easy 
matter for him to modify in the translation a few 
irregularities of construction. 

And Father will come. That is because he 
loves you, loves you as I love you. There is no 
doubt,—not the slightest, that happiness will 
come to all of us. Our love for you and our end¬ 
less gratitude toward you, binds us inextricably 
together. 

Do you hear me, my child? I have no doubt 
that you can be well. You will be for Father’s 
and my sake, for you know that you are the rock 
upon which our happiness must be built. It will 
again be. 

“We three.” 

My love and my gratitude, from 

Mother. 

P. S.—Mr. and Mrs. Duncan have gone to the 
Highlands. I stay here. I have lied, or rather 
I haven’t. I have told them there is something 
the matter with my heart. I shall stay here in 
order to wait for letters from you. 


231 


Aboard the Ferry, June 22. 


Dear Mother: 

I received your telegram yesterday. I did not 
expect it so soon. I wonder what made me go 
to the postoffice to inquire. I suppose it was out 
of some nervous anxiety. 

I have won, you say. Won! Oh, Mother 
dear, if only I were not so tired. I am not able 
to enjoy the victory. 

My eyes are blurred with tears. The seagulls, 
following in the wake of the boat become great 
spots against the blue sky. I am crying, but I 
am crying for joy. Or is it sorrow which inspires 
my tears? 

Perhaps neither. I believe it is because of my 
complete fatigue:—an unconquerable dullness 
and indifference that makes me want to lie down 
and sleep, sleep away from existence. For one 
night’s sleep does not help me, I am just as tired 
when I awake in the morning as when I go to 
bed at night. 

I cannot understand the excitement I con¬ 
tinuously felt from the moment I began my task. 
Everything seems so inconsequential to me now. 
Victory or defeat, what do they mean, when I 
am so tired. 


232 


We Three 


It seems strange to me that I ever loved to 
travel: that I ever could enjoy the speed, the life 
around me, the hustling and bustling. 

For I hate it now. 

Everyone stares at me with curious eyes. I 
wish they wouldn’t. I can’t bear it. There was 
one lady so anxious to get aboard that she gave 
me an awful push, and I felt I wanted to give the 
whole trip up and just sit down and cry. If a 
person just touches me in passing I get a ner¬ 
vous shock. 

The customs officers will soon inspect every¬ 
thing, and I shall have to open and close my 
trunks, answer a hundred questions and so forth. 
And I am so tired. 

No, Mother! I cannot. 

I must stop writing and yet I would so love to 
thank you for the pleasure you want to give me. 
It is a shame that you are not going to get the 
joyous letter you surely anticipated. But I 
shan’t send this letter off before I am thoroughly 
rested and see the bright side of things. 

At present I am only tired—so dreadfully 
tired, and I know Father is heart-broken because 
I had to go away without him. 

Poor Daddy. 

He is also—tired. 


233 


Hotel Titlis, Engelberg. 

June 24, evening. 

Dear Mother: 

I have just arrived. Mr. Williams stops at 
this hotel. Did you know that? 

He sent his card in to me immediately upon 
my arrival. I was lying on the sofa to rest a 
little before dinner, which was to be served in my 
room. 

What does he want? Am I to work again? I 
simply cannot any longer. 

Those were the thoughts uppermost in my 
mind when I saw him step in the door, strong 
and healthy. 

For a moment he stood speechlessly staring at 
me. “As young as that!” he exclaimed, and a 
moment after: “Now I think I understand. One 
cannot mistake these eyes.” 

“I hope you aren’t sorry that I came here. I 
just had to consult you before I started. I must 
know everything so as not to destroy those spots 
which are frail and weak and which ought to be 
infused with new life. I felt that something very 
big, something unusual, was the inspiration for 
your work. That is why I came.” 

234 


TV e Three 


And I forgot my tiredness in order to tell him 
my history and yours. I forgot it was a perfect 
stranger to whom I was talking. Was I wrong? 
Should I have kept your secret? Now, when he 
has left and I have had time to reflect I fear that 
you will not approve of it. 

But I do not repent of what I have done, be¬ 
cause I feel that he understands. 

He was quite moved when he spoke again. 
“How you have lived in your work! And you 
have not been able to stand the strain. You are 
ill now. You must rest and I shan’t disturb you 
while you are here. That is not the reason I 
came. We can just have a little chat now and 
then if it is agreeable to you. When the dinner 
was finally served he stayed and talked to me. 
He had already had his and he left me as soon as 
I had finished because he saw that I was tired. 

Mother dear, just the few words we spoke to¬ 
gether about my work made it appear in a new 
light, a much greater light. I certainly think you 
have found the right man, and I believe he has 
the power to round out and deepen all that I have 
but merely outlined. 

I should like to have had a longer talk with 
him—or to accompany him on his usual evening 
walks. But he insisted that I ought to rest after 
my journey, and though I feel some of my old 

235 


We Three 

energy returning I had not the spunk to pro¬ 
test. 

Perhaps he is right. Therefore I will say 
good-night and thanks for your long letter which 
was waiting for me when I arrived. Mr. Wil¬ 
liams wants to be remembered to you. He also 
wants to tell you that he is going to see that 
I take proper care of myself. 

Don’t think I am sorry that he came. If only 
he won’t bother me much. 

Your Yera. 


226 


Hotel Royal, Edinburgh, 

June 30. 

Dear, dear Vera: 

You must not lose your courage, even though 
you are tired and feel yourself weak and ex¬ 
hausted after many months of hard work. You 
must believe me if I tell you that this terrific 
depression is probably not caused by your ill¬ 
ness alone. Such a break down is quite the usual 
sequence to any sustained mental effort. Any 
artist who has produced something real and fine 
has been through it time and again. I believe 
sincerely that you will eventually find yourself 
all right again when you have rested a few days, 
and can be out in the fresh and invigorating 
mountain air. You must not give up now when 
the future looms brightly for you,—for all of us. 

I will tell you a secret that I think will please 
you and will give you new life again. A great 
resolution I have determined on after many inner 
conflicts. 

Little Vera, if Father comes to me now, if your 
work makes him realize how much 1 have loved 

237 


We Three 

him, how much I do love him still, and if his love 
for me has not altered, then I am ready to sacri¬ 
fice everything for him: my name, my work, my 
art and my fame. 

Sacrifice, I say! As if there could be any talk 
about sacrificing things which are of no value to 
me now. I do not wish myself back to work as I 
did on former vacations. I no longer yearn to 
have my soul clothed in strange garments and 
in other people’s characters. I long only to fol¬ 
low the call of my heart, which urges me back to 
my husband and child. 

I have had ample time to turn over in my mind 
the pros and cons of my future and I came to the 
conclusion that my duty lies with you two. Ten¬ 
derness and love never spoke vainly to my heart, 
and you, my beloved little Vera, have whispered 
to it the tenderest words it has ever heard, kind 
words about him I never have forgotten and lov¬ 
ing words from yourself. 

There are only two things which frighten me. 
That Father, in spite of his love and his longing, 
cannot forget the crime I have committed to¬ 
ward you both, and that you might be disap¬ 
pointed the day we stand facing each other. You 
feel that yourself when you write: “You are al¬ 
most superhuman in my dreams, and the reality 
may fade beside it.” 


238 


We Three 

And you call me “the world’s most wonderful 
woman.” 

For my sake you throw yourself into an ener¬ 
vating piece of work that saps your strength; for 
me, who do not deserve a single thought from 
you. For the sake of my happiness you are 
willing to sacrifice your health, your very life, 
if necessary,—and what can I do in return? 

You have, in your play, concealed my spiritual 
weakness under a cloak of love, and you have 
crowned my head with a halo which makes me a 
martyr. 

A martyr! I who denied my faith and my love 
and sacrificed them on the altars of false gods! 

Once perhaps you will see me as I appear to 
you in your thought. That will be the evening 
you watch me play for the first time. For that 
evening, I will wear the spiritual raiment your 
imagination has made for me, and the martyr’s 
crown you have placed on my head will sparkle. 

But afterward, when you meet me, griefworn 
and miserable as I really am, I wonder if you 
won’t regret that you made me step into the 
light, the reality. I tremble at the thought, even, 
that I may read disappointment in your eyes. 

I am very glad that Mr. Williams is with you 
now. At first, when I got his hastily scribbled 
note informing me that he had gone to Titlis in 
239 


We Three 


order to work with you, I feared his enthusiasm 
might awaken your desire to work again. 

But now since I have received your letter and 
see how sensible and understanding he is, I am 
only too happy he is near you. 

The pleasure he takes in the work will 
strengthen your hope. He will see that you do 
not overdo, and will be at your service when you 
need him. 

I hope his happy, healthy disposition will in¬ 
fect you and heighten your power of resistance. 
I cannot tell you how glad I am that he is sym¬ 
pathetic toward you. 

Remember me to him and tell him I would like 
him to write me some time and tell me about you. 

Mr. and Mrs. Duncan have sent me word that 
they are returning to Edinburgh about the mid¬ 
dle of July. Afterward the three of us will pro¬ 
ceed to Glasgow. Mr. Duncan is going to look 
at some plans and drawings for a new yacht at 
the ship-yards there. We two women are going 
to help decide on its interior decorations. We 
will stay there for a couple of days and will then 
return here to board the Maud for a cruise 
home. 

Keep on sending your letters to this address. 
My first errand when I return here shall be to 
the post-office, and there, good news will await 

240 


We Three 

me. I have not the slightest doubt about it. 
What does Father write? 

Dear child, I count the days until the “big” 
night. 

Your Mother. 


211 


Hotel Titlis, Engelberg. 

July 6. 

Dear Mother: 

I’d like to send you one of Father’s letters to 
show you how he has changed lately. He is so 
happy, so young, so full of hope! Or is he only 
writing me jolly letters in order to keep up my 
courage! 

I don’t believe so. I feel it is something else, 
something bigger that prompts it. The desire, 
the longing to show me my mother. He looks 
forward to it with as much pleasure as I. 

He writes about you in all his letters. He 
wants to prepare me, he says. In his last letter 
he sent me a photograph of you two, taken on 
your wedding trip. How happy you both look, 
—and that is how it must be again. You are 
ready to sacrifice your art, you say. Mother 
dear, then everything will be all right,—if the 
sacrifice will not be too great. 

My gloomy letter did not frighten you, thank 
heaven. I regretted almost immediately that I 
had ever sent it. I really should not put pen 
to paper in such a mood, for it does not benefit 
2^2 


We Three 


either of us. Now I want to tell you how happy 
I am. How gloriously happy over my victory. 
It plucks up my courage to start again and 
makes me wish to regain my health. 

The first couple of days I was here I did noth¬ 
ing but sleep, but now I am beginning to go out, 
—however only as much as Mr. Williams permits 
me. I tease him and call him my nurse-girl, but 
evidently that does not bother him. He says that 
he has promised you to look after me and he must 
keep that promise. 

It is no easy matter for him, for I can’t bear 
to be fussed over. I feel as if I want to do just 
the things I am forbidden to do. Yesterday I 
went out for a short climb up the mountain with 
two young men without asking his permission. 
He looked quite sour when I returned home, but 
I don’t encourage the idea that he should pre¬ 
sume to tell me what I should do and what I 
should not do. To be absolutely truthful, the 
reason I have decided to train my body is that I 
am envious of his capabilities in all kinds of 
sports, and the ease with which he jumps over 
fences and ditches. 

Oh dear, to be able to endure strenuous exer¬ 
tion of any kind. To be able to work as he does, 
to think clearly and quickly, to read and write 

248 


We Three 

such a lot and yet be perfectly healthy and 
happy, and still to find time to enjoy life. 

I have erred in thinking only of my desire to be 
somebody at the expense of my bodily vigor. 

The play is no longer mine but ours. He does 
all the work now and gradually, as he teaches me 
the art of construction and the technique, I re¬ 
alize how hopelessly ignorant I was when I 
started. 

I have worked purely by instinct and he tells 
me he is astonished that I hav£ done so well. I 
am almost ashamed to tell it, but there are situ¬ 
ations in the play with such profoundly signifi¬ 
cant meanings that I hadn’t grasped them until 
he interpreted them for me. I had aimed blindly 
and by accident had touched the mark. 

When will he be finished? I do not know. 
If he asks questions of me it is sometimes when 
working over the first, sometimes over the second, 
or even the third act. His little rattling portable 
typewriter can be heard at six o’clock in the 
morning, I am told. It has already made an 
elderly man seek another room in the hotel. 

I have not read the translation as yet. He 
tells me I must first of all try to forget about the 
play or I won’t be able to judge it at all. Besides, 
he is far from the end of smoothing its rough 
edges. 

2U 


We Three 

I believe he is keeping you in touch with the 
progress of his work. 

Has he written anything about me? I am 
afraid that at the bottom of his heart he doesn’t 
like me, because I am moody at times. I notice 
that he changes his expression when I enter and 
is more stiff and formal with me than with other 
women. 

It looks as if he were keeping himself in check 
so as not to tell me that he finds me unbearable. 
That is, at least, the feeling I have,—but of 
course I may be wrong. 

I do hope he will be finished soon, for I am 
eaten up with impatience and longing for the 
day that is to be the turning-point in our lives. 

Sometimes I wish I could wipe out the many, 
many days still left before the great moment is 
reached. But other times I would like to keep 
back the seconds because I am afraid to try the 
leap. 

Oh, the day, the day we are to meet! It haunts 
my sleep at night, and occupies all my waking 
thoughts. 

I think of all sorts of obstacles which may turn 
up at the last moment to destroy our plans. I 
fear that Father’s business may make it impos¬ 
sible for him to come. 

But this must not happen. “He who has the 

2A5 


We Three 


courage to be a victor,” Mr. Williams says, “will 
always win.” 

And have we not the courage? 

Your Vera. 


U6 


Hotel Royal, Edinburgh, 

July 5. 

Dearest Vera! 

We arrived today from Glasgow and as I told 
you my first visit was to the post-office. 

Your letter made me happy. Thank heaven, 
everything seems to be looking brighter. Your 
health has returned and with that your spirit 
and your courage. 

There was also a letter to me from Mr. 
Williams. It was, certainly, as full of enthu¬ 
siasm and hope as yours. He writes that the 
work intoxicates him. This play, he hopes, will 
mean the fulfillment of his life’s dream. He is 
only sorry that the work does not leave him as 
much time as he would like in order to be with 
you more. But he expects to have his innings 
when the task is finished. He compliments me 
for having such a beautiful, talented and charm¬ 
ing daughter, and tells me in a humorous vein 
of your amusing little moods. The young lady 
is certainly not boresome, he writes. 

Strangely enough he has conceived exactly 
the same preposterous idea of you that you have 
U7 


We Three 

of him, to wit: that you don’t really like him. It 
vexes me a little to think that you two excellent 
human beings seem to hide yourself away from 
each other. Is it the work that makes you ner¬ 
vous,—or what ? 

To be honest I am violently jealous of my 
good friend. He can be with you daily while I 
must wait patiently here and be satisfied to pic¬ 
ture you from his account. 

But of course it is thoroughly wrong of me to 
be envious of anyone now when every day brings 
me nearer to the great moment. 

You write to me that Father is now completely 
changed, “so young, so full of hope.” Yet he 
does not know all that we know, he does not 
share our big lovely secret. He does not know 
what his little girl has done for both of us. He 
has no notion of the great, the wonderful thing, 
does not know the fantastic ending of the fairy¬ 
tale. 

Mr. Williams promises me that the play will 
be finished before August first. He is going to 
bring it himself and in my presence read it aloud 
before the management. I know full well that 
I shall suffer the stage fright in advance that 
evening from which I usually suffer on the open¬ 
ing nights. With every nerve in my body do I 
anticipate the reaction of the audience. 

248 


We Three 


But whatever else the results of all these weeks 
will be, one thing is sure, that part will be my 
last, for I know it will be the very apex of my 
career. Never,—never can I reach higher than 
that evening, when I fling my last sacrifice upon 
the altar of art and burn at the stake my dreams 
of future plaudits. 

We sail from here to-morrow evening. Unfor¬ 
tunately I cannot give you any address before 
we reach London. Mr. Duncan says that our 
destination is uncertain and that where we stop 
to take on provisions depends on the wind and 
the weather. But he has promised me that we 
shall be in London in plenty of time. 

I would, under other circumstances, be rather 
sad leaving Edinburgh. I love this beautiful 
sunny town, with all its old historical sites, stand¬ 
ing like the scenery left over from the great world 
events which have been staged here. I enjoy 
sitting and dreaming up there near the old fort, 
with the town and the river Forth far below me. 
I feel as if I were carried back into the distant 
past when I see the Highlanders in their pictur¬ 
esque uniforms go through their plastic drills, 
accompanied by the weird sound of the bagpipes. 
(I hope we can be here together some day.) 

But as things are now I only long to go there 

240 


We Three 

where the event shall take place,—London. 
There we shall meet at last and throw the dice. 

A thousand greetings to you and Mr. Wil¬ 
liams from 

Your Mother. 


250 


Switzerland, July 30. 


Dear Mother: 

I never knew that a flaming fire could have 
such glowing embers, such fantastic colors and 
such flickering, crackling play as I saw yester¬ 
day. To see a piece of birch wood consumed by 
the flames is really an adventure. To sit gazing 
into the fire in a little log cabin, high on a cold 
mountain peak, is a real experience. 

Mr. Williams read aloud —his play. For it is 
not mine any more. I could not have created 
anything as great and glorious as that— And 
there were only two logs of wood on the fire. We 
found them in the abandoned cabin and put a 
match to them in order to force the dampness 
out. They burned long,—very long. They 
fought to last long enough for the play to be 
read, and they did. 

Mr. Williams,—no, Cecil, I mean. Now do 
you understand? The world’s most wonderful 
man have you sent to me,—Mother dear, how 
blind I have been! 

Happiness! I have called myself happy be¬ 
fore, but I did not know what real happiness 

251 


We Three 

was. My brain has been full of dreams for the 
future, or has been looking back upon many 
happy memories. But that is not happiness. It 
lies in the present and that I did not know. Just 
now have I learned not to rove restlessly about 
and push forward, but to stop—and enjoy. I 
have learned that there are moments so great 
that nothing in the past or in the future can 
overshadow them—that even the memories of 
such moments will pale beside the experience. 

Mother dear, I am the happiest soul in the 
world—filled with a strange feeling which at the 
same time seems violently egotistical and su¬ 
premely unselfish. 

How very stupid I have been. I was in love 
without knowing it. Only when I heard that he 
also was in love did I realize the power of my own 
feelings,—which are a reflection of his love, a 
responsive echo. I am completely stunned— 
Why does he love me—why is he mad with happi¬ 
ness? Why? 

I am proud and happy, but his love gives me 
a sense of responsibility,—a big and heavy 
responsibility. I am not the same person I was 
yesterday. I am changed as by a miracle. 

Last night I saw such beauties in the flames as 
I never knew existed. To-day I discovered that 
I have gone through life like a person asleep. 

262 


We Three 


Every impression stamps itself on my brain with 
double force, every feeling storms through me 
with greater strength. When I walk about in the 
open my eyes see values they have never noticed 
before. And music. Did I ever listen before? 
It seems that only now I hear. 

He has gone. He will reach London at the 
same time as this letter. How I envy the travel¬ 
ers who occupy the same car, envy you who can 
speak to him, envy everybody who is near him, 
while I must wait—wait. And for the first time 
in my life I haven’t patience to wait. 

The managers might not have accepted my 
play, mother, but his they are bound to take. It 
is so thrillingly beautiful that I cannot under¬ 
stand how a human being can create anything 
so great or feel so deeply. I am almost ashamed 
now of my own attempt. My love has given me 
a yearning to sacrifice everything,—everything 
and anything but him. That is why there creeps 
a feeling of worry about Father into my happi¬ 
ness. When I leave him now won’t he be all 
alone?—or would you — 

Yes, I do not dare to give up the hope that 
that evening will be a great victory. I cannot 
let myself abandon hope—not now when this 
great joy has come to me. It would not be my 
253 


We Three 

happiness alone that would be destroyed but also 

his. 

Do you remember when I wrote to you in the 
beginning about pleasure? It was then always 
a feeling which made me dance and jump around 
to give expression to my joy of living. 

Now it is different—something silent and 
quiet. It lives deep down in my heart, awaken¬ 
ing within me all the finest emotions. I want to 
be kind, even to those who do not deserve it, be¬ 
cause I believe they have never known true hap¬ 
piness themselves, or they could not help being 
kind. 

But you, mother, you have drunk from the 
deep well of happiness or you could not give all 
that you give in your letters. 

And still,—I cannot believe that others have 
loved as you and I have loved,—so deeply and so 
sincerely. No, it is impossible. 

Your Vera. 


254 


London, August 2. 


Dear, dear! 

No, never—never was I so surprised, so un¬ 
utterably glad. 

All that I have gone through, all that I have 
suffered—my sorrow, my longing, everything 
has dwindled into a mere nothingness. 

The deep feeling, the high exaltation, which 
spoke to me from every line in your letter 
warmed my old heart. My darling little girl has 
found the world’s most wonderful man and I 
have sent him to her. 

That I was permitted to be the tool of fate, 
that to me was given the opportunity to repay 
some of my endless debt to you, fills me with a 
boundless gratitude. 

I feel now that my life has not been lived in 
vain, that my part has not been just to tear down 
and destroy. I have been permitted to create 
your happiness—to build up your future. 

And to think that it was he, the man I myself 
had chosen for your collaborator, Cecil Williams, 
my dear young friend whose character I have 
learned to respect and whose cleverness and in- 
256 


W e Three 

telligence I admire. A man who is healthy and 
strong, clean-cut, kind and sympathetic, into 
whose care I dare entrust you without misgiv¬ 
ings. It is a pleasure so great, so overpowering, 
that I am completely overcome with joy, and 
alternately laugh and cry. 

I share your anxiety about Father. Does he 
know? Have you already written to him? Or 
will you wait until after he has met Cecil? 

He will place no obstacles in the way of your 
happiness. Without self-pity, without reproach, 
he will see you go your own way, however much 
he may disapprove, if only it leads you into some¬ 
thing good and beautiful. 

Lonely he must not be. Could he only forgive 
and forget—would he only receive me as I am— 
old and tired from wrestling with life, I would 
use every hour I still have left to regain what 
I have forfeited. And I will never be too tired 
to show him how deeply I love and admire him. 

Cecil just came. He is standing here in my 
room, tanned and beaming with happiness, and 
tells me quite cheerfully and undauntedly that he 
is going to take you from me, almost before I 
have a chance to see you. 

He sent me word this morning that he would 
call for me for the reading of the play this after¬ 
noon. We are going to the manager’s office 
256 


We Three 

now and Cecil will telegraph you when we know 
the result. 

I do not know if he wants to be remembered 
to you? 

Yes—he says—of course, many many times— 
he is lonesome. 

My congratulations, you two lovely young and 
brave children. 

I pressed Cecil’s hand while writing the above; 
that is why the words are crooked. 

Well,—happiness rarely comes to us in a 
straight line. 

But it comes. It comes to you and to him and 
to—well, to others, here and there, also, who do 
not deserve a visit from it. 

In a few hours I will be with you again. Until 
then 

Farewell. 

Mother. 

Morning, Aug. 3. 

P. S.—When Cecil had finished his reading 
last evening there was a dead silence in the great 
office and it was some time before anyone spoke. 

We sat in a semi-circle around the fireplace 
with Cecil closest to it. Only one lamp was lit 
which shed its light over him and the manuscript 
lying on his lap. The rest of the room was dark. 

257 


We Three 

I could hardly see the managers leaning back in 
the deep armchairs. Both were thoughtful and 
obviously were deeply moved. 

I, who sat there with the distressing feeling 
of having been spiritually unclothed, had pushed 
my chair back into the darkness. I wanted no 
one to see the tears rolling down my cheeks nor 
the agitation on my face. 

Cecil closed his manuscript slowly and tried 
to catch my eye through the darkness. 

I nodded to him. It was a silent thank you. 
I could not for the life of me have been the first 
to break the silence. 

Presently Mr. Watt spoke: 

“Well, what do you think, Mrs. Sanders? 
Would you take it upon yourself to study that 
part at once so that Mr. Williams’ play can be 
the first novelty of the season?” 

Do I need to tell you that I answered yes, at 
once? 

“And then,” continued Mr. Watt, “shall we 
not all thank Mr. Williams for the pleasure he 
has given us to-night by the reading of his work. 
I believe we have a play which will add new 
honors to our theatre.” 

What else happened, what was said about the 
play, its cast and so forth, Cecil probably wants 
to tell himself, and will much better than I can. 

258 


We Three 


He also writes to-day. To-day! yes. We two 
have been sitting together here in my apartment 
all night. We discussed and laid plans for that 
evening, for the future, for Cecil’s and your fu¬ 
ture and for Father’s and mine. 

The first of September will probably be a red- 
letter day for all of us which we will remember 
with tears and smiles. Let us hope it will be a 
day of complete happiness. 

I am afraid you did not sleep well last night! 
Haven’t you been visited by our thoughts? They 
have been with you all the time, with you and 
with Father at the same time. And now I must 
go to bed. 

With a kiss to you, dear. 

Mother. 


259 


Hotel Titlis, Aug. 10. 


Dear Mother! 

The first of September! What an eternity to 
wait—and yet. ... It is inconceivable that we 
are to meet soon. You live in my dreams, but 
that you also live in a world of reality is difficult 
to understand. 

I try to picture my mother as a living mother 
of flesh and bone and not only as a good fairy in 
the realm of imagination. 

My conception of book characters always dif¬ 
fers from the artist’s illustrations, and I am in¬ 
variably disappointed. But do you know why? 
The text never leaves a clear picture in my mind, 
because I envelope it in the filmy gauze of my 
imagination and completely ignore the details. 
In that case any picture whether of the mind or 
reality, must disappoint, because one is not pre¬ 
pared for it. 

Do you understand my fears? Or can you 
not understand them? I also fear that you will 
be disappointed and that I shall read it in your 
face when we meet. 

But no: I will not think that. For in my mo- 

260 


We Three 


merits of most intense happiness there always 
comes the fear that something will happen to 
destroy it. For I do not deserve all this good 
luck. 

I have demanded much of life. I have ex¬ 
pected much, but now when I have gotten it, I 
cannot understand why it came. 

I dare not believe that life lies before me as a 
bright and smooth play. I am afraid that sorrow 
will show its head the evening that we meet. 

I have thought that I longed for you. Now 
I know it was not longing I felt, not the kind of 
longing as when Cecil left. My body is in 
Switzerland but my heart is in London. I un¬ 
derstand now. Oh, how I understand how you 
two must have suffered! You have yearned all 
your life without any hope of satisfaction and 
without being able even to tell it to each other. 

I receive letters every day, but what are let¬ 
ters? Just substitutes. 

I am writing to Father now that he must come 
quickly. 

He will be astonished when he learns how fate 
has entwined the threads of life. For I shall tell 
him that Cecil came to Switzerland to write a 
play for you—the subject, of course, I won’t 
mention. And I will tell him that I promised 
to come to the opening. Then he will also come. 

261 


We Three 

He will be anxious to see the man I have chosen 
and to see you. 

I wish you could see how my stay here has im¬ 
proved me. I am as brown as a berry, but as 
thin as ever, thank the Lord. I follow blindly 
all the doctor’s advice for I have promised Cecil 
I would, and I am anxious to get well for his 
sake. 

I have thought about my illness seriously for 
the first time. There was a moment when I felt 
I had no right to marry. But I am so madly in 
love and the doctor has promised me that I would 
regain my complete health if only I would put 
my mind to it. 

I am trying not to be nervous for that is most 
ravaging. I try hard not to think of that eve¬ 
ning. It helps a great deal to think of Cecil and 
his faith in my recovery instead. 

I do wish this long wait of uncertainty would 
be over, so that I could be perfectly happy. If 
only I could go to London to-day, I would be in¬ 
fected with his calm. There are four, now, you 
know for whom that play is the turning-point. 
I know it will be an artistic victory, but will you 
and I also win? 

Your Vera. 


262 


London, Aug. 20. 


Dearest Vera: 

Please forgive my not writing for such a long 
time. But I am living in such a state of excite¬ 
ment that it’s impossible for me to get my mind 
down to the writing of a letter. That ought, 
partly at least, to express my chaotic feelings. 

But I hear that Cecil writes you daily all 
about the rehearsals and about me. About my 
changing moods, my faith in victory one day 
and my weariness, my fear and my agony, the 
next. He also brings me messages and greetings 
from you and keeps me up by his high spirits 
and indomitable faith in victory. 

He is present at all rehearsals. He has taken 
over the staging of the piece and he leads my 
fellow-actors at the firing-line as a general does 
his soldiers. He inflames them, pushes them 
ahead, he tunes them up as if they were instru¬ 
ments. Though we still have many rehearsals 
coming there are a few scenes already so firmly 
adjusted that they must be considered finished. 

Of course he does not interfere with my con¬ 
ception of my part. It does not ruffle him that 

ms 


We Three 


one day I appear tired and indisposed and the 
next day play my colleagues into bits in such a 
tempo as would destroy the framework of any 
play. 

He feels perfectly sure of me he says. He had 
never expected me to rehearse this part in a 
calm, studied, thoughtful manner. But he knows 
that on the opening night it will be perfect, 
created by my agitation and nervousness in a 
moment of burning inspiration. 

That evening. I do not dare think of it, dare 
not visualize it. I work feverishly and dare not 
be alone or at leisure for a moment. 

We started the season the 15th with the old 
play from last year. It does not take as well as 
expected and there is no doubt any longer that 
the first of September is the day. 

Cecil goes home with me every day after the 
rehearsal and takes dinner with me. 

He tries to keep me from thinking of the 
things which I cannot bear to dwell upon, by 
talking of his joyous plans for the future. He 
tries in many ways to bolster up my spirit. And 
to-day he found the words to give me the courage 
I needed to carry this through. 

As a rare exception I spoke to him about the 
play in connection with the part. Suddenly he 
said, deeply moved: 

264 


We Three 


“There is one thing I would like to say, May 
Sanders. (He always calls me that. I wonder 
if I shall ever prevail upon him to call me by 
another name.) I would like you to know, if 
you haven’t already noticed it through my treat¬ 
ment of your part in the play, that I feel you 
were right in doing what you did. I do not mean, 
however, that your husband was in the wrong. 
He had to follow his life’s vein as you followed 
yours. But you carried the banner of love so 
high and so freely waving, that it has not received 
a single tear or spot during the battle. That is 
why it will carry you to victory! 

(< You were right ” 

I bowed my head and cried. His words were 
like a blessing. A peace that passeth all under¬ 
standing filled my heart. It was as if I stood 
at the gate at last. My pilgrimage was at an 
end. I was cleansed of my guilt, my brow was 
clear. 

Now I am ready for Father and I believe he 
will come. And he will come to understand 
through your and Cecil’s play. He will also see 
with your eyes and feel with your love-intoxi¬ 
cated hearts that I was right. 

Soon, soon, I shall see you, hold your hand, 
press you to my heart, behold the young love 
265 


We Three 


in your eyes, feel that I have a daughter,—and 
then lose you again. 

Lose—what am I saying? Shall I not al¬ 
ways keep my daughter’s love ? And have I not 
—a son, now—who is on my side? 

Soon—soon- 

Mother. 


®66 



Telegram . 

Switzerland, Aug. 28. 

Both coming morning 31st. Love Vera. 


London, 31 August. 

Welcome, a thousand times welcome— You— 
and Father. 

Cecil has been with me until the moment he 
left to meet you, and he asked me if I wanted 
him to carry a message from me. 

Why cannot I come myself to meet you at the 
station and take you in my arms? Oh, dear, the 
path between us is not cleared yet. Will it be 
to-morrow? 

Where has all my strength and all my courage 
gone? 

Restlessly I pace my rooms, cannot sit still 
two minutes at a time. I move my knick-knacks 
about with trembling hands, touch a chord on the 
piano, and move away from it again for the sound 
of it cuts into my soul. 

To-morrow night . 

Yes, Cecil has a box for you, but I don’t want 

267 


We Three 

to know which it is. If I should know it, if sud¬ 
denly I saw you and Father there, beneath the 
same roof with me,—I would stop acting and 
just stare,—stare—draw you toward me in one 
long glance. 

No—I dare not let my eyes rest on you, but 
I shall feel your presence with every quivering 
nerve, and I shall be conscious of every nuance 
of your changing moods. 

And later—what then? 

If you can, please send a few words with Cecil 
to-morrow. 

Welcome—both of you. 

Mother. 


268 


Hotel Cecil, Aug. 31. 

Afternoon. 

Mother. 

You were not at the station this morning. I 
knew, of course, that you were not to be there, 
and yet I was disappointed. I looked for the 
one in the multitude. I thought perhaps you 
were watching our arrival from some hidden spot. 
But you were not there. No. No —of course 
you could not come. 

But to-morrow, to-morrow! 

I am going to see my mother- 

I am rather in a solemn mood inspired by a holy, 
exalted emotion, that pushes all petty everyday 
things into the background and erases them. 

I am going to see my mother- 

If I knew to whom I should pray and give 
thanks, I would do it now. 

When I stood on the station platform with 
your little unread note in my hand, the tears were 
coursing down my cheeks, and I did not try to 
keep them back. I knew you were so near me 
that I could reach you in a few minutes. But 
I was not permitted to see you and I felt this 
privation keenly. 


269 




We Three 


For a moment all obstacles seemed so incon¬ 
sequential to me. Cecil could take me to you,— 
he lives where you live; and Father—Why, I did 
not even think of him! 

It was neither the thought of the harm I could 
do you by intruding upon your life at this mo¬ 
ment, that kept me back, nor the thought of the 
play, which must succeed. It was the slight 
quiver around Father’s mouth when Cecil kissed 
my hand: a quiver that roused my compassion 
and made me throw my arms around his neck 
and bury my head at his breast. 

. . . Father is nervous. Father, who as a 
rule never loses his poise. He is pacing the floor 
of his room: I can hear his steps back and forth. 
We have talked about Cecil from the moment we 
met in Switzerland. I felt he was frightened at 
my choice though he did not say so. 

“He knows your mother, you say. She has 
chosen him to write that role for her,” he kept 
repeating. 

It seemed to quiet him to know that you had 
chosen him. 

And then he started again to question me. 

Just a minute ago he came in to me to tell me 
that Cecil and he had immediately become 
friends. He does not know that Cecil knows you 
are my mother, and he tried to get Cecil to talk 
270 


We Three 


about you and the play. Cecil only talked about 
you. And now,—when he has left,—Father 
walks restlessly about; back and forth, back and 
forth. 

You do not want to know which box Cecil 
has, you write, for then you will forget your 
part. 

Oh, mother dear, only when you forget the 
part will you he the part. I wish you could play 
for us three alone and not for the great filled 
auditorium. 

Father just peeped in at my door to tell me 
he was going down to the reading room to look 
over the papers. You and I know he is looking 
over the theatre advertisements, don’t we ? And 
yet I must still keep him in the dark. 

Poor little mother. To-day you are just a 
quivering bundle of nerves,—restless, impatient, 
with hope and doubt in your heart and in an 
eternal struggle with the part. You know that 
your little girl has come to London and you know 
that it is for her too you must fight to-morrow. 
You long for her so that you cannot think of 
anything else. 

As for myself, I am perfectly cool and calm, 
but of course it is not I who shall carry the vic¬ 
tory. Besides, I have Cecil again. 

271 


We Three 

Oh, to see him stand on the station platform 
and look for me when the train rattled in. To 
read in his eyes what I wanted to read made the 
blood rush to my head. There was a golden 
haze before my eyes when he took my hand and 
kissed it fervently and tenderly. 

We were not left alone until after we had ar¬ 
rived at the hotel, and then the time flew without 
our noticing it. 

Now he is gone; but to-night we shall all dine 
together. Father insists that we retire early in¬ 
stead of going out to enjoy ourselves. I noticed 
how relieved he felt when he saw that I was not 
disappointed. 

I wish I could sit by your bed and stroke your 
brow until you should fall asleep. I’ll be with 
you in my thoughts and so will Father. I won¬ 
der if we won’t all have a sleepless night. 

Can you possibly realize that we three are in 
the same city? And yet it is just as impossible 
for us to get together as it was when we were 
living in three different countries, writing letters 
to each other. 

Cecil is with you now. To-night he will come 
to me. When he leaves me later he will carry 
this note with him as a little “good-night” from 
me. 

He and I are certain of victory, darling 


W e Three 


mother. But your part of the struggle is the 
hardest and we admire you for your courage in 
taking it. 

L Your Yera. 


September 1st, The Theatre. 

2nd Act. 

Little mother, darling little mother: 

A reality more beautiful than the most beauti¬ 
ful dream. I love you, I love you! 

The audience is on its feet with enthusiasm. 
The curtain rises and falls. But you don’t come 
forward,—you don’t come forward. 

Have you completely broken down or are you 
just kept back by your agitation? If only I 
could rush behind the stage and press you close 
to me while I whispered my thanks. 

But I dare not—not before it is all over. 

Oh, dear, I wish they would stop their ap¬ 
plause. They look so weird, sitting down there 
with sparkling eyes and half-open mouths. There 
ought to be silence—deep silence—as in a church. 
That would be the greatest homage. 

Now they are stamping their feet,—all of 
them. Darling, darling mother, you have 
triumphed, triumphed. And Cecil and I share 
your triumph. What a dreadful moment when 
the orchestra started the overture and kept on, 


We Three 


kept on. It seemed as if the curtain would never 
rise. My throat was dry with fear. At last— 
now—now. 

My hands grasped for Cecil’s. He stroked 
my arm gently and looked deeply into my eyes. 
When I turned my eyes away from him I saw 
you, you only, on the big stage. 

The slight quiver in your voice when you spoke 
the first words, moved me profoundly. It was as 
if you spoke to me—to me alone. For I knew 
that your voice was clouded from the thought 
that I saw you for the first time. 

Then you calmed down and a breath of your 
calmness fell over the large auditorium. And 
you grew and grew and grew. There were others 
beside you on the stage. I didn’t see them. 
When you went out I felt sad and lonely. The 
curtain fell. The audience returned to the world 
of reality. A sigh seemed to escape them. Then 
they applauded and stormed. I sat as if turned 
to stone while the curtain rose time and again, 
and the audience clamored for you, shouted for 
you. But you did not answer their call, you 
could not. 

When a man gives of himself he always re¬ 
tains something. A woman can give everything. 
You have done that to-night, and I love you, love 
you, love you. 


275 


W e Three 


My teeth chatter in my mouth. I am cold 
from nervousness, white as a sheet, Cecil says. 
No, I will be calm, won’t cry any longer, won’t 
cry. The anxiety is over. We will triumph. 

Father is gone. He has cried, I heard his sobs 
behind me. The light sound reached my ears and 
made me forget everything else. He suffers. He 
was deadly pale when he went out. Oh, it is 
terrible to hear a man cry. He asked Cecil for 
your address. Will he come, will he? 

“Are you going?” I asked, frightened. 

“Just for a minute. I will be back when the 
curtain rises. I need to be alone. Cecil will 
please look after you when the play is over. You 
will not see me.” 

I pressed his hand in silence. My little mother, 
my darling mother, how great you are. The 
miracle has happened, and it is you who have 
performed it. 

Cecil said, deeply moved: “She can’t endure 
such a strain, she will ruin herself!” 

Now I fear that he is right, Mother. You 
have won, you need not wear yourself out. Do 
you hear me, Mother? Oh, to think that you are 
really my mother. 

They don’t applaud any more down there. 
The audience talks and laughs. The discuss 
and gesticulate and rattle their seats. 

276 


We Three 

That they can do it! I cannot understand 
them. 

Oh, that this should happen, that this should 
happen! All these years that I have had to live 
without you, to long for you, is nothing com¬ 
pared to this evening. 

Cecil brings you this note. But when, mother, 
when will you see me? 

k Vera. 


£77 


September 1st—night. 

Thanks, darling child,—thanks! 

How barren—how poor is the language of 
man. Here I am, with my heart full of love, 
gratitude, and the most intense happiness, and 
yet I cannot find words to express even a part 
of it. 

Is it happiness that robs me of speech, or is it 
the silence enclosing me after the battle which 
makes it impossible for me to shout my victory 
to the heavens. 

Yes, we have won, beloved little Vera. Father 
has been here. My age-long dream has become 
real. Father has been here in my room, has 
pressed me to his heart and whispered in my ear: 

“May, I am at fault, we both are. But now 
when we have understood it, and now when we 
have suffered, we will close our eyes on the past 
and with untold kindness try to heal each others’ 
wounds.” 

Silence fell between us, but in each others’ eyes 
we read all the unspoken words, felt them in our 
hearts beating against each other in mute and 
wonderful bliss. 


278 


We Three 


There was nothing to say, nothing to ask for¬ 
giveness for, nothing to promise. We both felt, 
as we stood there in a close embrace, drawn to¬ 
ward each other by our painful yearning, that 
now all promises and all forgivenesses were need¬ 
less. We belonged to each other through the 
power of love, and would never, never, never part 
again. 

That it should be you—the child—begotten in 
our first young love—who gave fate the last little 
push forward, is in itself a blessing on our new 
pact. 

I can realize the excited state you have been 
in through all these hours while you waited for 
news of the crucial meeting between Father and 
me. It was a great consolation to me to know 
that Cecil was with you so you two could enjoy 
your triumph together. 

I know that you have not been able to go to 
bed, but have been waiting, waiting until you 
heard Father’s footsteps in the next room. Per¬ 
haps you have slipped in there and have made 
him tell you the great news. Perhaps you al¬ 
ready know what happened from the moment 
you parted. 

No, he could not tell you of the maddening 
fear I went through when I stood alone on the 
stage while the asbestos curtain slowly descended. 

279 


We Three 

I felt that it was the wall separating my past 
and my future,—until I awoke in his arms to a 
reality a thousand times more beautiful than any 
dream. 

What can I tell you ? I, who went about as in 
a daze, and heard as in a dream the storm of con¬ 
gratulations that descended upon me. 

I have no idea how I reached my dressing- 
room. I saw, of all the flowers, only one bouquet, 
—La France roses—my wedding bouquet. 

With that pressed to my heart I went down to 
the waiting auto, having dressed with difficulty. 

Everybody saw that I was dead tired after the 
performance. But no one knew that I had still 
to play the last act of the drama that they 
thought was finished. And I did not even know 
the end myself. 

I knew from the loving, encouraging words 
you sent me during the intermission that Father 
would come. But when? How long would I 
have to wait? And how should I endure the 
suspense. 

When my car drove up in front of the house 
I saw, as in a haze, the figure of a man leaning 
against the iron railing. 

Father! I recognized him at the same instant. 
Silently I put out my hand—silently he took it; 

280 


We Three 

and hand in hand we went together through the 
hall into the living-room. 

Our eyes fell simultaneously upon your pic¬ 
ture standing on my desk. We looked at each 
other. He opened his arms and I buried my head 
on his shoulder. Darkness enveloped me—the 
earth slipped away under my feet. But I felt 
myself held up in his strong arms, and I felt 
his mouth against my lips. 

He is gone now. We have talked together, 
all through the night, but not of the past. Let 
the past bury its dead. It is the future that holds 
our happiness. And we spoke about you and 
Cecil, who had worked for our happiness and had 
found your own in the bargain. 

When you two go on your honeymoon, then 
Father and I will go out into the world for the 
second time together. 

He would not speak to-night about practical 
matters regarding the theatre and the manage¬ 
ment. 

“Our little girl has lifted the biggest stone 
from our path. Shouldn’t a big man like me 
then, be able to remove the rest with ease?” 

“Our little girl.” 

When will you meet me, you ask in your note. 

As soon as this night is gone. As soon as these 

281 


We Three 

few hours still left before daybreak, have van¬ 
ished. 

But I must sleep first. Sleep with the con¬ 
sciousness of the joy to-morrow will bring. And 
awake calm and strengthened with a smile and 
gratitude, because light again has conquered 
darkness. 

To-morrow, to-morrow I shall at last embrace 
you. And my thanks and my love shall radiate 
from me and envelop you in an ocean of warmth 
and sunshine, which shall dispel all the dark 
shadows of the past. 

Until to-morrow, my beloved little girl. 

Mother. 


282 

































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